The Other Doctor
by Super Chocolate Bear
Summary: The TARDIS malfunctions and crashlands on a wasteland of a planet, populated by dying refugees and desperate soldiers. And everybody blames the Doctor...
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**The Other Doctor**_

_**Prologue**_

With a noise halfway between a belch and a sigh, another cloud of noxious gas sifted into the air from a crack in the ground. For a brief moment, the lone occupant of the planet considered avoiding it. Considered holding his breath. Considered surviving.

But that time was long past. The sky, once the most dazzling shade of greens and oranges during the day, had now been reduced to a shadowy grey, with brown clouds acting like smog across the landscape.

With a grunt of effort, U'Chut heaved himself to a half standing position. The grunt quickly gave way to a coughing fit, and he collapsed back down on the floor. Of his four legs, his frontal right had been claimed by the eruption of the Volcano in the north province of his country. His arm lost to the bombing that followed. His skin, once a brilliant deep blue, faded and rotted to a pale green. And his will to live?

That was taken when his life-mate died, enveloped by an earthquake and screaming his name.

And all because of one man.

They hadn't known it was him causing it, at first. No-one in the entire universe did. But soon, populations began to disappear, planets crumbled, and solar systems faded away. Nothing left but a memory and a wisp of dust.

Soon, what was left of the intergalactic authorities from the different worlds banded together to find the cause. To find out why the universe was dying. And, through all their explorations, battles and negotiations, they found out the one thing the dead and the dying had in common.

The Blue Box. The Blue Box with the alien writing uniformly engraved above the entrance. The entrance that no-one could get through in time to save themselves, but the same entrance that _he _somehow managed to enter as thought it were nothing.

U'Chut remembered the first time he had heard the noise. That horrifying, stomach twisting noise. Like an animal howling as it died. Back when news actually travelled to different planets.

They had tried to fight him. But somehow he always outwitted them, made them to be fools. And then he killed them. Mercilessly, ruthlessly… but never in the same way. Always with different methods for each individual person. Because, as they soon found out, the Blue Box was a time machine. So he took his time. Psychologically assessed all of his prisoners. And then he found the ways to kill them that would torment them the most.

Some weren't even dead. They were left in a limbo of agony and despair for the rest of eternity.

Some called him the Beast. Some called him the Devil.

U'Chut froze. A noise filled the air. That noise. Repeating, again and again. Like an approaching storm.

At first, there was a ghost of an image. And with every beat of the Blue Box's 'heart', it brought itself into his world.

The noise stopped.

The door opened.

And then _he _stepped out. Confidently, easily.

Cruelly.

He didn't even register U'Chut's presence. He just reached inside his flowing dark trench coat and pulled out a thin silver device. It glowed blue at the tip and whirred menacingly as he squatted and pointed it at the ground. Almost as quickly as he began, he stopped, and slid the device back into his coat.

A disinterested grunt was the only noise he made as he stood and went back to his ship. As he opened the doorway, four lights appeared on either side of the Blue Box, surrounding him.

Still with that same look of boredom, he pulled the door shut and leant against it, one hand idly slipped into his pocket while the other slowly reached inside his coat and pulled out the thin silver device.

Four Judoon formed from the lights. Their armour was damaged, burnt and faded, their horns cracked and ageing. The status indicators on their rifles flickered precariously.

"You will die," one barked, although U'Chut couldn't tell which.

The man seemed to find this amusing, and grinned. "Is that right?"

"You will die."

After a small hand signal to his fellows, the Judoon on the right charged his weapon.

"Aim!"

With a roll of his eyes, the man lifted his silver device into the air, and flicked it on.

"F-"

A wave of blue energy burst from the light on top of the Blue Box, dissolving three of the Judoon into nothing and knocking the fourth skidding along the ground. U'Chut only felt a slight tingle as the blue wave spread over him.

U'Chut watched, transfixed as the small device was leisurely slipped back into the man's trench coat and he sidled over to where the injured Judoon lay. His hands in his pockets, the man stood over his injured hunter.

"Genetic bio-feedback wave. The TARDIS detected you coming, so I thought 'They've come all this way, I might as well put on a show for them'." He leant over the Judoon. "Did you like it?" has asked, grinning.

A weak Judoon hand grasped at the man's ankle in some vain attempt to attack.

"Of course, I was coming here anyway to check on the degradation levels." He looked over the dying landscape. "The TARDIS really does nice work when it tries." With a smile, he looked at U'Chut. "Don't you think?"

U'Chut didn't reply. It was a mix of fear and burning fury that prevented him from doing so.

"Aaanyway," he said lightly, whipping his head around to look down at the Judoon, his hair bouncing around with him, "got to run. This planet's exploding in five minutes. Well, I say five minutes, it's more like three. Well, two. Well, half a minute really. So you see," he said, tapping the Judoon on its' horn with his finger in time with his words, "I. Really. Need. To. Go."

U'Chut stared. Should he try to gain access to the Blue Box? What did the man call it? The TARDIS? The man seemed preoccupied with his gloating for the moment.

He crawled along the ground, his energy sapped by the noxious gases that filled his atmosphere long ago. He wondered if his lungs would be able to adapt to normal air ever again.

A desperate three fingered hand reached for the door, when another five fingered one rested on the door beside it. The man pointed a finger at him.

"That's mine."

He struck out with his other hand, knocking U'Chut onto his back.

"You don't touch other people's things!" he said exasperatedly, landing another kick to U'Chut's midsection.

The door opened, and he went in. After only a few seconds, that haunting noise began again, and the TARDIS faded from existence.

As the sky grew red and the world crumbled around him, U'Chut just stared at where the TARDIS had been.

Some called him the Beast. Others called him the Devil.

Most, though, simply called him the Doctor.

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	2. The Dying and the Dead

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**The Other Doctor**_

_**Chapter One: The Dying and the Dead**_

Martha and the Doctor gave a cheery wave to the creature as it left.

The floating jellyfish thing pushed itself into the air with a mighty thrust of its tentacles. The Doctor had tried to teach her the proper pronunciation of its name, but it had so many clicking, purring and hooting noises that she couldn't keep a straight face. The Doctor had eventually done that 'forget it, you simple-minded human' roll of his eyes and run off to deal with the situation. Martha looked over at her travelling companion.

He had that look again. That satisfied 'I'm so smug and happy with myself' look. One wouldn't think that he had instigated the whole thing simply by _being _there. But then again, he must be used to that by now. Everywhere he went, it always seemed to be him starting something or sparking off some reaction that sucked the two of them in and tossed them around for a bit before they both ended up stood in front of the TARDIS, admiring their handiwork.

Or it just left _him_ smiling. As it was, Martha was marvelling at how smug he could be when he had almost no reason to be. She would grant that it _was _the Doctor that saved them most of the time. But this time… _almost_ all her.

"And why are you looking so happy with yourself?" she asked, crossing her arms.

Confusion marred his features as he looked down at her, although there was still amusement dancing behind those wide eyes.

"Why? Shouldn't I be?"

"No! I did all the work this time."

"You most certainly did not," he scoffed, whirling on his heel in the sand beneath them. He looked down in irritation as some sand got into his Converse trainers through the small holes in the sides. The indignation on his features almost made Martha crack up there and then.

"I so did! You spent half the time wandering around," she gave a vague waft of her hand to illustrate, "with your sonic screwdriver."

He frowned defiantly. "I-" He paused for a moment, pulled out his sonic screwdriver and waved it around in the air, mimicking Martha's earlier movement.

"Huh," he said, his eyebrows shooting up curiously. "I didn't think I looked like that. Anyway," he said, shaking his head and putting the implement away, "_I _was the one who identified it as a member of the Ooo-klukkluk-claclacla-ooo-tut-prrrr."

The Doctor rifled around first in his trench coat and then his suit jacket for the TARDIS key, finally finding it in his trousers with a quiet yet triumphant 'ah'. He opened up the TARDIS and went in, Martha hot on his heels.

"So? _I _was the one who found out what Room Ten was all about!"

"Oh, yes, very impressive," the Doctor retorted, tossing his coat over one of the support struts in the TARDIS control room. "You find a missing room and go in, very clever."

"A room you _couldn't_ find, may I remind you."

The Time Lord started twisting random instruments on the control panel, avoiding eye contact and tugging on his ear. "Yes, well… that was just because… it was hidden… in a… hyper spatial… thingy."

Martha smiled and leaned over the control panel so they were opposite each other. "It was hidden behind a _very _thin wall. Not very hyper spatial, if you ask me."

"Yes, and remind me again how you found it?" he replied sarcastically.

"I…" Her gaze dropped and she idly traced a line around one of the buttons on the control panel. "…_might _have fallen through it."

"Eeeexactly," he replied, bouncing around the control panel, whacking his hands against seemingly random different parts of it. "So your big contribution to this whole thing was tripping on the last step of some stairs and falling through a wall into an inter-dimensional breach that led to the mind of an alien creature that had been enslaved decades ago by Dakken property tycoons and only wanted to get home to its parents." He took a breath. "And that was a very long sentence for one breath, let me tell you."

Pushing aside the Doctor's ramblings – which was quickly becoming routine - Martha pointed a finger at him. "Ah yes, but _who _was it that convinced the jellyfish thing-"

"Ooo-klukkluk-claclacla-ooo-tut-prrrr," he corrected.

She ignored him. "-to _not _kill the people who had been living in the hotel?"

"Well," he began, scrunching up his features and looking skyward, "it didn't take much doing. Ooo-klukkluk-claclacla-ooo-tut-prrrr's are well known for being peaceful. I'm sure it just understood that the humans had no idea that the land beneath the hotel they were living in was a spatial displacement generator designed to keep the Ooo-klukkluk-claclacla-ooo-tut-prrrr trapped."

"Ah, but I _did _do it. What did you do?"

He obviously didn't like where this was going. "I… got all the people out of the hotel."

She waved a dismissive hand. "Police could've done that."

"But they didn't, did they?" he said quietly but insistently.

"But they could've done. What did you do to _really _help us along?"

There was a long pause as the Time Lord seriously considered his options, pulling on his ear.

"I…" He snapped his fingers. "Ah. I got _you _there!" he shouted triumphantly, pointing a finger quickly at her.

For a moment, the only noise in the room was the steady thrum of the TARDIS.

"That's it?" Martha asked.

The Doctor took a breath. "Yep, afraid so."

She laughed. "Well that was pretty pathetic."

He shrugged. "Yes, well, it's been a long day, and I didn't get any ice cream while I was there. I mean, honestly, who goes to an English beach front property and _doesn't _get some local ice cream?"

"Or fish and chips," she added, flopping down in a chair.

"Fish and chips!" he exclaimed, running his hands through his hair as he wandered the room like a man possessed. "How could I forget fish and chips?! You'd better not let me forget next time." An accusatory finger angled its way towards her.

Her eyes widened and she sat forward in her chair. "Speaking of forgetting things, you know what _I_ promised I wouldn't forget?"

He tried to guess, and then remembered. "Ah."

She nodded vehemently. "You bet your arse, 'ah'. It's your fault we ended up here in the first place!"

"There's nothing wrong with Scarborough!" the Doctor yelled defiantly.

"There is when you promised the most beautiful beaches in the universe!"

Something on the LCD screen before him suddenly became fascinating. "Yes, well… that's your fault for getting your hopes up."

"Doctor…"

"All right, all right, let's go…" He wandered around the control panel and started her up. The familiar, welcoming noise of the TARDIS' 'engines' filled the room. "I don't know… you try to take a friend somewhere nice, you make a _slight, teeny weenie_ navigation error, and you never hear the end of it…"

"Didn't you say it was at the other end of the universe from Earth?"

The Doctor's expression didn't change. "Did I say that?"

She nodded, smiling.

He took a long breath. "Well, when I said the other end of the _universe_, I was exaggerating, _obviously_. Because, you know… if it _was _at the other end of the universe, that would make it an absolutely humungous, _ginormous_ navigation error."

"Which you never make."

"Never!" he said, pushing himself off the panel and hopping to the stairs.

Martha looked from the blinking control panel to her erstwhile travelling companion. "Oi! Where are you off to?"

"Ice cream," he said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "It's not Scarborough made, but it's _very _close."

She tried to look him in the eye, but the fact that he was hopping on the spot didn't help. "Then where's it from?"

"Dairy Prime. Planet shaped like a giant cow."

A loud bark of laughter escaped her. Her smile quickly faded when she noticed the serious look on his face.

"What? Seriously?"

He remained po-faced for another few seconds before bursting out laughing.

"Humans…" he laughed, shaking his head as he hopped down the stairs. "Honestly, you'll believe anything if you say it seriously enough…"

"Oh, ha, ha!" she said, pursuing him down the stairs.

Their voices echoed through the control room as they raced to the kitchen, the noise of the TARDIS gradually drowning them out.

And then the TARDIS fell.

The steady noise of the engine suddenly became strained and slower in pace. Barely five seconds passed before the Doctor and Martha were back in the control room, the former desperately whacking buttons and pulling levers while the latter simply tried to stay upright as the room span around them.

"What's going on?"

"I don't know. It's like something's happened to the time vortex…"

"And what's that mean?"

The Time Lord tilted his head. "Well, it means that-"

The TARDIS rocked again, and the engines roared in protest. Martha had never heard the TARDIS roar before. She had little time to ponder the subject, as the roar was quickly followed by a sudden lurch, tossing both the Doctor and Martha to the other side of the room.

The Doctor clambered his way back to the control panel and haphazardly put his glasses on while he peered up at the monitor.

"Can't be… again?"

"What!?" Martha yelled, latching on to one of the support struts.

"But I didn't do anything this time…"

"What?!"

"And Mickey's not here, so it's not him…"

"Doctor! Would you please tell me what the hell is going on?!"

He whipped his head back to look at her. "Did you touch any of the controls?"

There was a tone of accusation in his voice that she didn't appreciate. "No I did _not! _I don't know what half of it does, why would I-"

He turned back to the control panel. "Then why is it gone?"

Martha rolled her eyes and pulled her way up to stand beside the Doctor at the control panel. "What's gone?"

"The time vortex… it's gone. Again!"

"Again? This has happened before?"

"Well, it… wait…" He tapped for a few seconds on the monitor, and the display changed colour from pale blue to green.

"It's back!" He exclaimed happily. He frowned. "It's back?" The grin returned as he looked at her. "It's back!"

The TARDIS stopped with an almighty thud, much louder than the landings Martha was used to with the Time Lord's ship. But she wasn't thrown across the room, and whenever that _didn't _happen, Martha thought of it as a good landing.

She looked over at the Doctor and smiled in spite of herself. His glasses were barely resting on the tip of his nose, and he was seemingly frozen, desperately grasping the TARDIS control panel. Wide eyes stared up at the ceiling, as though it might cave in at any moment.

"Right…" he uttered quietly. Suddenly, he sprang up to his full height, adjusting his glasses before deciding they weren't needed and tucking them into his jacket. "Drentax Five! Finest beaches in the known universe as of the thirty second century, thanks to the human colony that settled there in the twenty seventh!"

With a skip in his step, he made his way to the door, snatching up his coat as he went. The speed her head looked from the Doctor to the control panel, it was as though she were watching a tennis match.

"Hang on a minute, what about all that missing time vortex stuff?" she said, pointing to the central column.

Meanwhile, he was exploring his coat pockets for something or other. He looked at her curiously with a 'Hm?' before waving his hand dismissively. "Nah, sort that out later. Probably just a glitch. Poor old girl's getting on in years," he said, stopping his exploration to stroke one of the support struts fondly. He quickly snapped himself out of his reverie and grinned impishly at her.

"Come on then!"

And with that, he was out of the TARDIS, throwing on his coat as he went.

Martha paused before following, looking up at the TARDIS' 'engine'. There was obviously more going on than the Doctor was telling, and once again he wasn't giving her an inch. It was something she was beginning to accept. Not exactly a healthy relationship.

She sighed and followed him out, closing her eyes and preparing for the sun.

And then she gasped as an icy cold wind smacked her in the face.

She shrivelled up as tight as she could. She looked around and saw nothing but snow around her, the TARDIS already sporting a white outline. The TARDIS had landed on a cliff, a good ten metres or so from the ledge that she assumed overlooked the sea.

"Doctor?" she shouted over the howling wind, squinting against the snow.

"Over here."

Martha looked to her right and found the Doctor stood on the ledge of the cliff. Feeling more than a little annoyed and keeping her arms crossed in a vain attempt to keep warm, she walked over to him.

"You call this the finest beach in the universe?"

"Well," he began, looking up to the sky, "this is definitely Drentax Five. I recognise the constellations."

She frowned. "Then… what? We arrived in the middle of winter?"

The Doctor looked at her in the serious way that always made her shiver, regardless of temperature. "Martha. Look up."

She did, and her frown deepened. "Hang on. There aren't any clouds."

He nodded, keeping his gaze upwards. "This isn't snow."

"Then what is it?"

"Remember the Sycorax invasion during Christmas?"

"Yeah, it snowed then as well."

"That wasn't snow. That was the remains of the Sycorax ship burning up in the atmosphere."

Horror etched its way onto Martha's features. "Oh my God. I ate that snow!"

Amusement danced across his features as he looked at her. "You _eat _snow?"

She avoided his gaze. "No… I just… let it land on my tongue sometimes…" She cleared her throat. "Anyway… this is ash, then?"

The replying nod was slow, deliberate. He frowned.

"But I don't understand," he muttered. "Drentax Five has a peaceful life until the fifty forth century, why would it suddenly change now?"

"Maybe we landed in the wrong century?" Martha suggested in a way she thought was helpful instead of annoying. It was incredibly hard to tell with the Doctor sometimes. "I mean there was that whole 'time vortex disappearing' thing, maybe that cocked up the readings or something."

The Doctor stared at her with his eyes wide.

"What?"

"You're a beaut, Martha Jones," he said, grinning wildly as he shot off back into the TARDIS.

"What?! Doctor!"

She followed him inside to find him at the controls. "What was that all about?"

He largely avoided looking at her as he ran around the control panel like a rabbit, his coat flaying about behind him like a cloak. "Last time the time vortex disappeared, the TARDIS had fallen into a parallel dimension - and almost died from it, too – but it never occurred to me that there was a time vortex in that reality as well."

"So we're in a… parallel Drentax Five?"

"Right!" He nodded happily, seemingly pleased with his companion's deduction and making Martha feel a little less useless. He continued on, clueless as to the effect his approval had on her.

"One where the planet doesn't sport the finest beaches in the universe, obviously. The time vortex of this reality must be so similar to ours that the TARDIS was able to 'bounce' from one to the other pretty seamlessly."

"_That _was seamless?"

He shrugged. "Well, as seamless as an old TARDIS can be. Be realistic," he admonished, sparing her a disapproving glance before slapping a few more random controls and staring intently at one of the monitors. "But how did we slip _into_ this reality? It's like there was a hole in the time vortex…" He snorted derisively at his own idea. "Don't be ridiculous…"

Martha knew that he would get pulled into his own little world if not stopped, so she walked over to him, leaning against the control panel with one hand. "So we can get going?"

"Well, yes, but…" he stood to his full height, slipping his hands into his pockets. "…that's a completely different Drentax Five out there," he said, staring just past her head and to the doors. "One that we'll never be able to visit again…" His gaze fell to her.

They looked at each other for just moment before they grinned.

"I'll get my coat," Martha said, running to the stairs.

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Lieutenant Alonzo Sloan frowned as he spied the blue box that was steadily gathering dust in their storage area. Then he looked to the surveillance orb that reported seeing that same blue box in the outskirts of the western region.

Captain Walker wouldn't be pleased. Finally, _finally_, they had caught a break. The blue box the tyrant Doctor used to spread death and disease was in their possession. It slowly killed anyone who touched it, and as a result they had lost six men, but still, they had it.

And now there was another one in the outskirts of the western region.

With a grumble, Sloan whipped his feet off the desk and slid his chair across the room to the comm panel on the wall. He pressed a button beneath the small speaker.

"Captain Walker?"

There were a few seconds of silence before the good Captain responded.

"…_yes?"_

"Sorry to wake you sir, this is Lieutenant Sloan. I've got a problem in the surveillance room."

"_What kind of problem?"_

"Well… you know how we brought in the Doctor's blue box?"

The Captain's tone changed, becoming more alert at the mention of something so sensitive. _"What about it?"_

"There's another one, sir."

There was a pause.

"_What do you mean, 'another one'?"_

"I mean… I'm looking at the surveillance orb for storage room B5, and there's a blue box there. But I'm also looking at the surveillance orb for sector 7A2 of the western region… and there's a blue box."

"_Any sign of the Doctor?"_

"No sir, no sightings yet."

There was a groan and a curse from the other side. _"All right. I'll be up to take a look in five minutes."_

"Aye, sir."

He pressed the same button again, closing the channel. Using his foot, he kicked off against the wall and slid to the monitors, studying the newly appeared blue box.

Sloan had always been told that the Doctor had one blue box. No more, no less. That same blue box, with that same noise. It had a more technical name, but that was only available to people with security clearance high above Sloan's. So 'blue box' it was.

The reports had never been wrong before.

But, as he stared at the two blue boxes, Sloan realised that there was a first time for everything.

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The snow crunched unnaturally under their feet. Every time Martha started to enjoy it, her face would scrunch up as she thought about the contents of the white fluff beneath her and she would look straight ahead.

The Doctor was beginning to think he shouldn't have told her. But then again, Rose got over it pretty quickly, even going so far as to instigate a snowball fight with him. But that was Rose. Martha was too much of a thinker at times. There were times when she wouldn't let herself just enjoy something on a pure emotional level.

Of course, he was one to talk. He thought so much he sometimes feared his head would pop. He certainly thought Rose's would when she looked into the time vortex. Amazing girl.

Martha tapped him on the shoulder, and he felt a little bit guilty for filling his thoughts with Rose when someone else was right next to him.

"Are you sure we're going the right way?"

"No."

"No?"

"No, _I'm _not. But the TARDIS is."

"Oh," she replied simply. She took a breath, and the Doctor prepared himself for more. "Hang on. Is this the same TARDIS that fell through a hole in the time vortex that shouldn't exist but actually does?"

He rocked his head from side to side like an upside-down pendulum. "…probably, and anyway," he said, turning to her but continuing his pace backwards, "that has nothing to do with how well the TARDIS can detect land masses. And, according to the TARDIS' sensors, there's a city this way. So shush."

With his point satisfactorily made, he turned back around so he was walking in the right direction.

Lights gradually began to fade in through the falling snow.

"Ah! See?" he yelled, pointing. "What did I tell you? Civilisation!"

As they approached, they saw they were coming to a huge tent, the lights they saw coming from inside.

"Hmm. Now what do you make of that?"

"Looks like a tent to me," Martha said quickly, looking unimpressed and cold.

He rolled his eyes. "No, but I mean, think about it. Who puts up a huge _tent _in a blizzard?"

"What would you like? An igloo?" she replied, sounding impatient.

"Maybe," he shrugged. "Igloo's are very comfy," he said, getting in her face with a grin.

She smiled, and nodded towards the tent. "Can we go in then?"

"Yeah, all right," he said, as though indifferent. Truth be told, his extremities were beginning to feel the biting cold as well. Trainers were not made for travel in snow. Or… spaceship ash snow.

Eager to be out of the cold, Martha went over and unzipped the tent from the bottom up, the Doctor following after her quickly. Thinking it polite, the Doctor zipped it shut behind them, not looking at what was inside yet. He quickly turned when he heard Martha gasp.

"Oh my God," she said, her voice barely a whisper.

Bunk beds lined either side of the tent, which seemed to stretch on for miles. In each bed lay men and women who looked as though they were… the best the Doctor could think of was rotting away. Some looked dead, others seemed to barely have the strength to moan.

The healer in Martha took over, and she ran to the bedside of the man closest to them, lying on the bottom bunk. She reached out to feel his pulse.

"Martha, don't touch them!" he shouted, his voice so sudden and loud it made her jump.

She glared at him accusingly. "I've got to do _something_!"

"I get the feeling these people are long past saving," he said bluntly. He looked down the length of the tent. "And from the looks of things, it seems like they've all got the same thing. Which means it must spread easily, so _don't touch them_."

He knew that Martha was smart enough to notice that, but occasionally the healing instinct was hard to ignore. Hell, he knew that better than most. He saw a problem, he fixed it.

His gaze travelled along the beds, and he noticed that one of the women on the top bunks was looking at him. Her gaze was haunting, fearful.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I'm so sorry."

"Do you…" Martha paused to gulp. "Do you think it's airborne?"

"Could be." He noticed some people walking down the aisle between the beds towards them. He pointed them out to Martha with a nod. "But judging by those people there, I'd say no."

As they got closer, the Doctor's frown deepened. They weren't doctors. If they were, they were strangely dressed, seeing as they were _very _heavily armed and wearing white and green camouflage gear.

Maybe that look was in for Drentax Five doctors at the moment.

The closer they got, the more the Doctor got that funny feeling in his toes. The one that said 'run before they shoot you'.

"Martha…" he said, crouching down and grabbing the zip, still facing the approaching figures.

"Yeah?" she asked quietly, her eyes locked on them.

"I think…" They brought their guns to bear. "…we should run now."

He whipped the zip up and they turned to go. Two masked soldiers awaited them there as well, guns pointed at the Doctor's head.

"Or… not, as the case may be," he sighed resignedly as he thrust his hands in the air. His instinct was to reach for his psychic paper. Hopefully he could sort this out in a few seconds.

The soldiers kept their weapons trained on him, their grip so tight that the guns trembled.

But surrender didn't seem to be what the one on the right had in mind.

"You killed her… you killed my wife."

The one on the left glanced over at him. "Simmons, calm down."

"He killed my wife!"

"Simmons, calm down! That is an order!"

"You killed her… you killed her…"

He slowly squeezed the trigger.

As he did every time he was faced with imminent death with no obvious way out, the Doctor wondered what his eleventh incarnation would look like.

Hopefully he'd be ginger.

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	3. Relatively Normal

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**The Other Doctor**_

_**Chapter Two: Relatively Normal**_

The soldier on the left reached out and lowered Simmons' weapon for him, taking it off him once it was pointed away from the Doctor. With a shove, he forced the aggressive soldier back and away from the immediate area, relieving him of his weapon and slinging it over his shoulder. Simmons simply stood fuming, his fists clenched tightly at his sides as he watched the Doctor.

The two soldiers from the tent walked out behind them, all of their weapons pointed at the Doctor. One slammed the butt of his gun into the Doctor's back, and he fell to his knees with a startled gasp. The surprisingly cold steel of handcuffs on his wrists made him turn his head.

"Steady on, I was surrendering!"

"That's what the Judoon division thought."

"What?" he asked incredulously, his face screwing up with confusion.

The soldier who had dismissed Simmons looked to Martha. "Who are you?"

She was speechless, so the Doctor filled in.

"She's a doctor. Thought she had a new treatment for the patients. She didn't recognise me when I came in."

Although his face was hidden by what the Doctor could only think of as a ski mask and a balaclava, the soldier's disbelief was almost palpable. "I find that hard to believe. Everyone around the universe knows your face. And your blue box."

"They do?" The Doctor cleared his throat and changed tone to sound more authoritative. "Well, yes, of course they do."

Martha came forward to say something when the Doctor gave her a warning look. The soldier witnessed this silent exchange and nodded, thinking her reaction born out of fear _of _the Doctor, not _for _him.

"All right. You can go," he said to her, gesturing to the tent with his rifle.

At first, she didn't move. But when she saw the 'trust me or you'll get killed' look on the Doctor's face she mustered up the courage to go inside. She zipped the tent closed behind her, and pressed her ear to the 'door', listening for anything further. She swore that if she heard anything like a gun being cocked, she would run out screaming and tackle them to the ground.

Not very Doctor-like, but what the hell.

After about five minutes of talking on their radios (or whatever they used as radios on Drentax Five), they headed off, taking the Doctor with them. Martha quickly left the tent, hoping to see which way the Doctor was being taken. The blizzard had thickened, and she could barely see four feet in front of her. She didn't hear anything like a vehicle leaving either, so there went that option.

Her nose and fingers felt like they would drop off, so she went back inside the tent and zipped it shut. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself, but the combination of the shocking cold and panic wasn't making that an easy feat.

All right, all right. She didn't know where the Doctor had been taken, or how. Or if he was going to be kept alive. Those soldiers seemed pretty angry with him.

_Understatement, Martha._

She could probably find her way to the TARDIS – it was only a straight line to get there from the tent – but the cold _had_ increased, and she didn't know if she could survive it. And what if the Doctor escaped or was released and came looking for her here? It wasn't like she could leave a message with anyone to tell the Doctor to meet her at the TARDIS.

Hopelessly, she sat down on a crate beside one of the beds, running her hands through her hair and shaking her head.

She'd just have to wait here.

Left behind by the Doctor.

"Story of my life," she muttered to no-one in particular. Certainly not the poor soul lying in the bunk next to her.

Her ears perked up. Footsteps. Coming down the aisle between the bunk beds. Feeling both cautious and excited, Martha rose from the crate and stepped out into the aisle to get a better look.

She smiled widely as the Doctor walked towards her. The smile faltered slightly when she noticed the Doctor wasn't looking at her at all, his eyes firmly locked on the exit.

"Are you all right?" she said, stepping out as he got to her.

His gaze fell upon her, and then he looked behind him to check if she was in fact talking to him.

"Yes… fine," he said, turning back to face her slowly. "No problems."

"Well?"

"Well… what?"

She rolled her eyes. "How did you get away from them?"

"Oh!" He scratched the back of his head. "I… ran and hid."

"Very courageous of you."

He frowned, looking annoyed and confused. "Well… it worked, didn't it?"

She shook her head, smiling. "I'm just glad you're all right."

"Yes… well. Good to see you too," he said, patting her on the shoulder with a small smile on display.

Silence hung between them, the only noise the howling blizzard outside and the billowing tent.

"So," she began, "are we going to head back to the TARDIS?"

Suddenly she had his full attention. He looked almost surprised that she had spoken.

"The-" He cleared his throat. "Yes. The TARDIS. Let's… go, shall we?" He gestured for her to lead, and she left the tent happily, the Doctor following.

She held herself tightly and tried not to gasp as the cold assaulted her. She looked over at the Doctor, who was walking along as quickly as she had ever seen him walk. In fact, he quickly overtook her in his haste, forcing her to increase her pace to keep up with him. Good idea, she thought. Kept the blood flowing. Martha looked over at the Doctor, whose gaze had not faltered since they stepped outside.

"Aren't you cold?"

He looked at her, and then shook his head.

"Do you not… get cold?"

He shrugged, looking around them. "I'm always cold."

Martha frowned at how weird that sounded, but she said nothing. Obviously those soldiers had said or done something that had seriously freaked him out.

Yet one more thing that he wouldn't tell her about.

It didn't take them more than fifteen minutes to reach the TARDIS on foot, which delighted Martha to no end. They both stood outside, neither making a move for the door.

"Shall we go in then?" Martha asked impatiently, the cold beginning to bite at her.

"Well… I think you can do this."

Martha was about to object in a way along the lines of 'It's bloody freezing, my fingers will fall off' but decided against it. The Doctor was giving her the chance to do some TARDIS stuff for herself in his own slightly condescending way.

_Baby steps, Martha, baby steps._

Trying to stop her hand from shivering in the cold, she reached inside her pocket and pulled out the TARDIS key. It was warm in her hand, which she relished. In a few seconds they were inside. Martha had never noticed how warm the TARDIS was until now. Not so warm it became cloying and sweaty, but not so cold you had to wrap up. Just right.

She folded her coat and jacket over her arm as she headed for the stairs. Martha stopped and turned when she didn't hear the usual inane chatter from her travelling companion. Instead, he was looking around the TARDIS control room in wonder.

"Are you all right?"

He looked over at her. "Hm?" He shook himself from his daydreaming state. "Yep, yep, fine. No problems."

Looking like he was pretending to be secure and confident, the Doctor wandered over to the control panel without removing his coat, seemingly mesmerised by it. He stroked random parts of it as he walked around it. She knew that look. She had the very same look when she first had her proper look around the TARDIS. But at the same time, she didn't want to seem silly to the Doctor, so she toned down the 'gee whiz' thing.

And now the Doctor had that very same look. In his own TARDIS. Maybe it was a nostalgia thing after having such a brush with death. She shook her head.

"So…" Martha asked, dismissing it as usual Doctor weirdness while she went down the stairs. "Where are we off to now?"

"Um… haven't decided yet."

"Are we at least going back to our own universe?"

He stared at her. "What?"

"Our own universe?" She said. "Or reality, or whatever you said before? Hole in the time vortex, or something like that? No? Ringing any bells up there?"

His eyes got that unreadable wideness as he looked down at her. "Right…" He snapped back to reality. "Yes! Right! Back to our own reality through the hole in the time vortex!" He excitedly slapped a few controls. "A few stops first though, all right?" he said, looking at her in a way that confused her.

"What… you mean in this universe?"

"Yeah. Problem?"

"No, no, just… looking forward to those beaches is all."

"…beaches…"

"Yeah, right. The beaches of Drentax Five, the finest in the universe?"

He smiled. "Oh, right! Those beaches. Yes, no problem. After a few stops though."

"Okay, I don't mind. I'm just gonna have a shower and get changed, so don't rock the TARDIS too much, yeah?"

"I'll try," he said with a grin and a wink.

She smiled back. Finally getting back to normal. Or whatever passed for normal on the TARDIS.

A shower and a fresh set of clothes later, and Martha was feeling generally better about the whole situation. Yes, the Doctor was acting weirdly. But then again, he was always weird. But he _did _let her open the TARDIS, which had to count for something.

She was walking down one of the TARDIS' many orange-brown corridors, making her way to the kitchen. She frowned (which was becoming a recurring theme for her at the moment) as she came to a door with the Doctor stood in front of it, and stopped to look at it, still brushing her hair.

"Problem?" she asked, a bit put off by his complete and total ignorance of her unless she spoke. Was he always like this, and she just didn't notice? Or was it something new?

He shrugged. "No, I just can't seem to get in. TARDIS must be acting up because of the reality jump."

"What's inside?"

"The Cloister Room."

She stopped brushing. "The what room?"

"Cloister."

"But… we're inside. You can't have Cloisters inside."

"Well, you can, there just wouldn't be much point."

"What's it for?"

"There's something very important in there."

"What?" she said, resuming her brushing. She never knew with the Doctor whether important meant 'universe altering weapon' or 'a new kind of banana drink I invented'.

"The Eye of Harmony."

"The what?" She continued brushing, still not convinced this was going to be something worthwhile.

"The Eye of Harmony. It's like… the heart of the TARDIS."

Hair brushing went on hold. In her head, 'heart of the TARDIS' sounded important. "So it's a power source, yeah?"

His head bobbed from side to side. "…sort of."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, it was originally on Gallifrey, but then it-" he stopped himself. "Do you want to see it?"

She smiled and shrugged. "Well… yeah, if you're offering."

With a smile not quite like his usual grin, he nodded to the door. "You'll have to open it, then."

"Why me?"

"Because the TARDIS won't let me do it right now. Maybe it'll let you."

"Why wouldn't it let you?"

He rolled his eyes impatiently. "Maybe it's being temperamental, I don't know. Who knows anything about why a TARDIS does what it does?"

Martha looked at him unsurely, not sure where the animosity had suddenly come from. Rather than annoy him more, Martha reached over and twisted the doorknob. It clicked open, and she went inside, the Doctor following with not just a little anxiety.

Martha gasped as she entered the room, taken aback by just how _big _it was. It looked like a church, except perhaps with a slightly more gothic theme. Flame torches were mounted on the walls, although there seemed to be far more light in the room than just those flickering ambers could provide. The ceiling towered over her like a cathedral hall, and a huge carpeted staircase lay on the far side of the room, observation booths on either side of the top of the staircase. It occurred to Martha that this was what all buildings looked like on Gallifrey.

"And… you've never shown me this room… why?"

He shrugged as he went to a structure in the middle of the room. "I can honestly say I don't know." He looked around. "Although _technically_ I suppose this isn't a Cloister Room. But what the hell, eh?"

She barely registered his comment. "When was the last time you were in here?"

"Few… days, I think. Although," he pulled his ear absently as he looked around again, "it looked a little different then."

"Different? Does it change every time you come in?"

"Obviously…" he muttered, although this sounded more like it was to himself.

"And is that the Eye of Harmony there?" she asked, getting back to some semblance of lucidity as she approached the structure in the middle.

Four posts stood in each corner around the raised square platform in the floor. It dipped in the middle and what looked like a giant closed eyelid lay in the center, craved out of stone. Ramps on either side of the eye led up to it.

"Right. Although it's best not to open it."

"Why's that then?"

"Because of the incredible amount of energy inside. So much it could seriously damage the universe if left open for more than a few seconds," he said with relish. He touched one of the posts, and the TARDIS groaned and shuddered.

"What was that?"

He shrugged, transfixed by the post. "Something wrong upstairs, I should think."

She just stared at him, unnerved by his nonchalance. "… shouldn't you go check it out?"

"I suppose…" Suddenly he shook his head, snapping himself from his reverie. "Yes, right! Check it out, as you say!"

And with that, he dashed out of the room, turning briefly to ask her if she was coming. Something on the post the Doctor had touched had caught her eye, and she moved forward to inspect it.

"Yeah… in a minute…"

"I'm going now!"

"All right, I'm coming!"

In fact, it was _exactly _where the Doctor's fingers had lightly brushed against it. A little bit whiter, paler… It was as if the stone was… rotting?

"Coming?"

"Right, right, coming."

Obviously something had happened on Drentax Five, and it wasn't just something that made him act weird. Martha followed, her eyes lingering on the post until she was out of the room.

As she came up the stairs to the control room the Doctor was busy at the controls.

"Nothing to worry about."

"What was it?" She said, walking over to look at the LCD monitor.

"It's nothing. Don't worry," the Doctor said, turning the screen away.

She rolled her eyes, throwing her arms out in exasperation. "Oh, come on, you always do this."

"Do I?" he said idly, tapping buttons on the screen.

"Yes, and I'd just like to be clued in once in awhile. I don't that's too much to ask."

He stared at her for a few moments before leaping back to life. "Yes, I suppose so. It's because of the energy transfer."

"What energy transfer?"

"From the sun we're orbiting." He stood up and nodded at the monitor, his hands in his pockets. "There's a solar flare, and I'm transferring the energy to the TARDIS."

"But doesn't the TARDIS run on temporal energy or something? You'd have to go to a source of temporal energy." Martha frowned. "That's what you told me."

"Did I?"

She nodded.

The Doctor tugged on his ear, still looking at the screen in front of him. "Well, that's the most direct source, yes. But since that's not here…"

Her frown deepened. She was utterly lost. "But… this is the TARDIS. It shouldn't matter where we have to go. 'Distance isn't an issue', you said to me."

He took a deep breath, blowing it out through his nose. Martha noticed his jaw muscles visibly clenching. "It doesn't matter, all right? No go on about your business and leave me to this."

"And wouldn't taking energy from this universe damage the TARDIS or anything?"

"No. Now just…" He waved her away with a waft of his hand and leant forward on the control panel, bathing his face in the light from the monitor.

Something about the dismissive nature of the gesture irked Martha. Rather than make a scene, she just pushed it down. "Why do you want me out of the room so badly?"

He gave her a blank look. "Because you're asking a lot of annoying questions, and I'm frankly," he said, poking irritably at some buttons, "a bit annoyed with it."

Oh, that was it. To hell with not making a scene. She stomped over to him angrily. "Oh, I'm sorry! For a minute I thought you invited _me _to go with _you!"_

With a speed that frightened her, he grabbed her wrist and looked her straight in the eye, pulling her to him.

"Would you _please_ just-" He stopped himself, blinked, and let go of her arm, returning to the controls. "Sorry. Very tired," the Doctor said quickly and dismissively.

Martha rubbed her wrist where he had grabbed her. It took her a moment or two to breathe enough to speak. "It's… it's all right."

"Just… let me have some alone time. Then," he looked up to get some eye contact, "I'll be back to normal, all right?"

She stared right back into his eyes. What she saw made her shiver, but not from any cold.

"Um… yeah, all right. I'll just…" she pointed down the stairs. "I'll probably be in my room if you need me, all right?"

"Right. Good," he said, shooting her a forced little smile.

Moving at what she hoped appeared to be a normal, casual speed, Martha got down the stairs and to the kitchen as fast as she could.

_That _was new. In all the time she had known him, the Doctor had _never _resorted to physical violence at any juncture. It didn't matter whether the universe was about to end or whether he was just getting annoyed with someone; the Doctor just _never _hit, grabbed or otherwise attacked others physically.

Of course, he hit the TARDIS every now and again, but Martha was never sure if that was him getting angry or if it was just the way the TARDIS worked.

She looked down at her wrist again where he had grabbed her. There was some dead skin where he had touched her.

"_I'm always cold."_

Come to think of it, his hand _had_ been unusually cold when he grabbed her. She was just so surprised by the event that it didn't occur to her at the time. And now there was some dead skin on her arm where he had touched her, just like on that post in the Cloister Room.

The TARDIS groaned and rumbled again, protesting against some unusual treatment or other.

Martha steadied herself against the kitchen counter. That would mean all the controls that the Doctor was using… everything in the TARDIS was rotting away at his very touch.

And it was doing something to his mind. Degrading it. Like some kind of… senility for Time Lords. The Doctor probably wasn't even aware of it.

Once again the TARDIS lurched with a loud grunt of effort.

Martha left the kitchen and headed to her room. She would have to do something about it, and she had a feeling the answer lay on Drentax Five.

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	4. Greener Grass

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

(A/N: A big hoorah to Hhgbh for being a beta!)

_**The Other Doctor**_

_**Chapter Three: Greener Grass**_

Two soldiers shoved him roughly into the chair, and the Doctor struggled to stop it from tipping over. _Not _a particularly dignified position for the last of the Time Lords.

Not a particularly dignified anything at the moment, really. The room certainly didn't scream 'made for your comfort'. Four blue-grey walls with a thin metal square table in the middle, one chair on either side. A simple circular light bathed the room in white light, the brightness at such a level that it was more irritating than discomforting.

His coat was currently in the hands of a third soldier in the corner of the room, searching the pockets for anything dangerous. Well, the Doctor assumed that was what he was looking for. All he found was a wallet.

"What's this?" he asked sternly.

"That's a wallet."

The soldier stood on his left grabbed him roughly by the collar of his pinstriped jacket. "And what's _in _the wallet?"

The Time Lord cast his gaze upwards, unsure himself. "Let's see… there's some psychic paper, a photo of Bob Dylan, and a button from some piece of clothing I can't find _anywhere_. Very annoying, I can tell you." Slowly, the soldier released him and let him sit back down.

A few seconds of trifling later, the soldier with his coat came up with the sonic screwdriver and tossed it to his colleague with a cruel smile.

"Sonic screwdriver." The soldier beside him smiled smugly, and the Doctor just frowned. The soldier pointed it at his head.

"Now… you are going to tell us how to get into the TARDIS, or I'm going to start showing you what our intelligence division has shown us about this thing."

"Well," the Doctor said, rocking back and forth on the chair, his hands firmly lodged in his pockets as he crossed one leg over the other. Honestly, what a pathetic bluff. "I suppose I _could _tell you…" He looked the soldier straight in the eye. "…but I'm not going to."

The soldier took a frustrated breath. "Fine."

He twisted the bottom of the screwdriver. "Setting twenty seven. Recognise what that is?"

They were asking an awful lot of technical questions, which made the Doctor frown. "Setting twenty seven, setting twenty seven… is that for ironing out creases?"

The soldier pushed the button, and the light reflected against the Doctor's forehead.

The Doctor giggled. "Tickles." Usually he would just say such a thing to annoy his captors, but setting twenty seven genuinely did tickle. He made a note to remember that little titbit, just in case.

Confused, the soldier tried a different setting, each one prompting a different response from their captive. One made him sneeze, another itchy, and one even made his left eyelid twitch uncontrollably.

All very annoying, but obviously not effects they were hoping for.

His irritated colleague dropped the Doctor's coat on the floor and stormed over to the soldier as he struggled to find the right setting.

While they quietly bickered amongst themselves, the Doctor raised a hand. "Um… just wondering," he said, scratching behind his ear, "but are you sure you've got the right person? Obviously it's someone very _similar _to me, but-"

The soldier stood on his other side, who so far had remained silent, suddenly sprang to life. He grabbed the Doctor's chair and whirled it around so they were facing one another.

"Are you the Doctor?"

"Yes…"

"Do you carry a sonic screwdriver with you?"

"Yes…"

"Do you use a TARDIS as your main method of transportation?"

"Yes! This is uncanny, really." He smiled.

After a brief silence, the soldier released the chair, letting all four legs hit the ground. "Then you're the one we want."

"All right, fair enough," the Doctor shrugged, "but why?"

The soldier moved around the table and sat opposite him, his still masked face unreadable.

"Because you have performed atrocities around the universe. Entire solar systems drained to nothing, just as you're doing here. Billions of lives… gone in an instant. Because of you and your TARDIS."

The Doctor stared silently as he thought for a moment, and then shook his head.

"You've lost me, sorry."

Large gloved hands grabbed his chair and swivelled him around to face the would be interrogator, the sonic screwdriver still in his hand.

"You are the Doctor! The single most hated thing in this universe!"

Taken aback by the intensity, the Doctor looked past the soldier. "Well, I know my happy attitude can get a bit grating, but-"

"Shut up! The only reason you're not dead is because we need you to-"

His colleague got to his feet. "Reeves. Calm down and get out."

"But-"

"Out!"

After a lingering glare at the Doctor, Reeves stormed out of the room, tossing the sonic screwdriver to the other standing soldier as he went. He slammed the door behind him.

"Happy fella, that one," the Doctor said, nodding to the slammed door.

"Can't blame him. His wife's entire family was killed. Everyone down to the half cousins."

"I'm sorry."

"You should be. Because you did it."

He scrunched up his face and shook his head. "Oh, look, I _am _sorry, but whoever this Doctor is that you're looking for, he clearly isn't me."

"And can you prove that?"

"Yes. Take me to my TARDIS."

"Funny you should say that. Because we've got it right here."

The Doctor frowned. "You do?"

He nodded. "Got it weeks ago."

"Weeks ago?"

"That's right."

"Can't be mine, then. I only landed a few hours ago."

"Is that right?"

"Correct," he replied, putting emphasis on the 'r' noise. "Mind you, it was by accident, but still… only a few hours ago."

"And would that be the TARDIS we detected in the western region?"

"Probably."

"Which, conveniently, we couldn't reach at the time because of the blizzard. Which, conveniently, is now gone."

The Doctor tried to hide his frown. "Actually, if the TARDIS _is _gone, it's probably more _in_convenient than convenient." He paused. "For me, anyway."

The soldier rose from his chair. "Tell me how to get into the TARDIS."

A blank stare was all he got as the Doctor thought it over. Obviously the Doctor these soldiers were so incredibly happy with wasn't him. So, by extension, his TARDIS wouldn't be the same.

He shrugged. "Okay, tell you what. I'll give you my TARDIS key, but I guarantee you it won't work."

"Why? Some kind of DNA lock?"

"Nope."

"Retinal scan?"

"Nah."

"Voice recognition?"

"No."

The soldier took a calming breath. "Then what?" he growled.

The Doctor leaned forward across the table, interlocking his fingers together and resting them on the table. His captor moved back slightly as he did so. The fear of the action made the Doctor worry. Just what had the other Doctor been doing here?

"Because it's not my TARDIS. It's this other Doctor's. If this key," he reached into his jacket and pulled out the key, holding it up for the soldier to see, "doesn't fit, then I want you to at least entertain the wacky, silly and incredibly funny possibility that I'm telling you the truth."

Cautiously, the soldier took the key. "Fine," he said, staring at the metal Yale key for a few moments once it was in his glove. He closed his hand into a fist around it and pointed at the Doctor. "But if this turns out to be some kind of trap, I will-"

"Pull out my spleen, etcetera. I'm well versed with the classics."

The soldier straightened up in annoyance and left through the door, telling one of the guards stood outside to come in and keep an eye on the sole occupant of their interrogation room.

At least, the Doctor assumed it was an interrogation room. The closest the Drentax Five he knew had to an interrogation room were the saunas. And he hadn't been in many interrogation rooms in his extensive lifespan.

Odd that he'd never been interrogated that much. He wasn't exactly popular with a lot of people. Daleks, Cybermen… Queen Elizabeth…

That still made the Doctor giggle. Made him wonder just how rude this tenth incarnation of his could be.

He idly looked around the interrogation room, and, finding only four bare blue-grey walls and a man who didn't look like much of a conversationalist, jammed his hands in his pockets, crossed his legs and started humming 'Like a Rolling Stone'. He used the one foot he had on the ground to teeter back on forth on the rear legs of the chair.

Less than five minutes later the soldier was back, this time unmasked, revealing his short cut blond hair and dulled blue eyes. He nodded to the guard to leave the room, and then sat opposite the Doctor.

"It doesn't fit," he stated blandly, avoiding the Doctor's gaze in frustration.

The Doctor lifted his leg, allowing the chair to topple forward onto four legs. "You don't say."

"Where's the real key?" he said in some semblance calm, tossing the key onto the table.

That wasn't the question the Doctor was expecting. "Pardon?"

The soldier grabbed him by the collar and pulled him across the table. "I am in _no _mood for your notorious sick sense of humour. Where. Is. The. Real. Key?"

Feeling similarly irritated, the Doctor glared straight back at him. "That. _Is._ The. Real. Key. The key for _my _TARDIS. Which is _not _what you have here. Search me if you like, but I can tell you with no degree of uncertainty that I do. Not. Have it!"

After a few seconds worth of staring, the soldier roughly released the Doctor, and he fell back into his chair.

Slightly annoyed at the creases, he straightened out his suit before speaking.

"Listen. Let me have a look at it, I might be able to-"

He snorted a laugh. "You're joking, right? What the hell do you think would possess me to let _you _near a TARDIS, whether it's yours or not?"

"Because I'm the only chance you have of getting in there. Or do you have another Time Lord hanging around that I haven't seen?" To accentuate the point, he looked around the small dull room before staring intently at his captor.

Still avoiding his gaze, the soldier absently tapped his fingers on the table for a few seconds before suddenly rising and leaning across the table, pointing an angry finger at him yet again.

"You will be under armed guard. I will fit you with remote controlled explosives. If I see even one _hint_ that you are going to attempt an escape, I will personally make sure you are in five million pieces before you can even say 'whoops, I messed with the wrong person'. Understand?"

Feeling a little less intimidated than he thought he should, the Doctor nodded. "Crystal."

The man nodded. "Dandy."

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Martha grasped the pipe and slapped it against her hand a few times, as though that would be a good measure for how much damage it could inflict. She wasn't too sure on Time Lord physiology, but a good whack around the head should be able to knock anyone out. Although Time Lords only _looked _like humans. For all she knew, it could just end up annoying him even more.

She hoped it wouldn't be necessary anyway. Try to reason with him first. If that doesn't work… knock out the Doctor, put him somewhere where he can't dissolve everything and then find some way back to Drentax Five. Fix the Doctor, they go on their merry way, end of story.

Easy.

Right.

After taking a lifetime's worth of deep breaths, Martha ascended up the stairs to the control room, the pipe behind her back and underneath her jacket.

"Doctor? You there?"

What she could have sworn was a muttered curse wafted through the air to her ears.

"Yes, I'm up here," he said tiredly. "Come on up."

Confirmation given, Martha straightened her back and tried to walk upstairs a manner she assumed was nonchalant. She had seen the Doctor do it often enough.

"What's going on?" she asked faux-curiously, walking towards him on a tiptoe and trying to sneak a glance at the monitor.

"Energy transfers almost done. Then we're off!" he said, slapping that sparkly globe thing as he turned to look at her. He rested one hand on the control panel, leaning against it with his legs crossed beneath him.

"Off… where?"

He grinned and waved a finger at her. "Oh, never you mind, my faithful companion!"

Martha smiled at him, idly wandering around the control panel so they were on opposite sides. The monitor in front of him bleeped, and the Doctor became absorbed in whatever had just popped up. A quick and (she hoped) unnoticeable glance revealed that Martha couldn't see whether the controls were rotting or not. Wonderful.

"Um… Doctor?"

"Yes?"

She wandered around the control panel casually, closing the gap between them and tightening her grip on the pipe. "Have you noticed… anything strange around the TARDIS recently?"

_That _stopped him. He looked at her, but kept his hunched over position in front of the monitor.

"Like what?"

"I don't know… stuff… rotting… dissolving, that kind of thing?"

He stared at her blankly for a few moments. "Nope. Nothing." He returned to the monitor.

Martha took a long breath. "Are you sure? Because back in the cloister room I noticed that-"

"Oh, what?!" He threw his arms up in the air and stormed over to her. They were nose to nose. "What petty thing have you come across now to pester me about?" he spat, making Martha blink.

She backed up a bit. "Look, Doctor, I think you should just calm down, all right?"

"What if I don't want to be calm, hm?" he said, leaning in dangerously close to her. "What if I want to be absolutely _mad_?"

It was getting increasingly difficult to keep her breathing steady. "It's just I think you might have caught something on Drentax Five, or-"

The Doctor whirled around so his back was to her, waving his arms around in the air.

"Oh, yes! Let's blame it _all _on Drentax Five! Can't be that I'm just sick and tired of all the constant nagging! After all, that's all you do! 'What does this do?' 'What's that for?' Makes me cringe every time you speak!"

His tone became slower, quieter, and Martha pulled out the pipe from under her jacket.

"Well, you know what? I'm tired of it. I'm tired of this little act I've had to put on since I met you. I'm tired of pretending to ignore the pathetic little suspicious looks you've been giving me. And I'm tired of pretending-"

Martha swung the pipe, and the Doctor turned and caught it in his hand.

"-that you're not trying to betray me at every turn."

With strength Martha wasn't aware the Doctor had, he tugged the pipe from her grip. Time froze inside the TARDIS. Martha wasn't sure what to do. Explain herself? Run away? Attack him? She dismissed the last thought almost as soon as she pondered it. Attacking the Doctor was a stupid thing to contemplate in the first place.

The Doctor studied the pipe for a few seconds before he swung it around and cracked it into her arm.

Martha yelled out in pain and stumbled back onto the gantry leading to the door, falling backwards awkwardly. She cradled her arm, her brain unable to advance past the fact that the Doctor had just hit her with a pipe.

"Now," he said, advancing on her, "you will stay there…" he gestured dangerously close to her face with the pipe.

"…shut up…"

He tossed the pipe over his shoulder.

"…and let me work!" he said, his tone suddenly casual and light.

Keeping that same demeanour, he wandered back to the control panel and started working again.

"Trust me," he said, winking at her, "you'll love it."

Martha didn't tend to the pulsing pain coming from her arm. She didn't even move from her awkward sitting position. She just stared at the Doctor. The man who she had trusted for no reason at all. The man who she had always felt safe with, even when being chased by human size rhino aliens, witches and Daleks.

And now she was scared of him.

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The soldier in front of the Doctor, after sparing a paranoid glance back at him, swiped the card down the slot beside the door.

"Only a card?" the Doctor scoffed. "That's not very high security, I must say-"

"Shut up," he muttered over his shoulder, leading the way into the large cargo area as soon as the creaking metal door was open.

With a little trepidation, the Doctor followed. It was a rather large room, which made sense for something called a holding bay. Metallic grey walls gave the warehouse of a room that lovely 'all business' feel. Yellow crates of some supply or another lay in the corner of the room, and that was all she wrote as far as contents were concerned. Except for the object in the center of the room. The Doctor almost instantly stopped in his tracks when he saw what the centrepiece was.

A police box. A TARDIS, exactly like his.

And yet, not his. It was dilapidated. The wood was rotting, the paint peeling off and greying. The light behind the writing above the doors flickered ominously like some seedy dive of a bar.

As he closed in on the dying vessel, the Doctor reached into his jacket.

"Hey!"

Instantly on alert, the ten or so soldiers in the room brought their weapons to bear on him.

The Doctor froze. Slowly, he pulled out his glasses. When his captors were satisfactorily at ease, he rolled his eyes and shook his head before he returned to his inspection, crouching in front of the lock.

He ran a cautious hand over the door. He quickly pulled it away, hissing.

"What?"

It was the soldier who had 'interrogated' him, now stood behind him with his hands on his hips.

The Doctor shook his head, frowning as he inspected his hand. He rubbed his fingers against his palm thoughtfully, as though crushing some insect in his fist. He stared at the lock. "There's something… wrong with it."

"What? Broken?"

"No, it's not that… at least I don't _think _it is. There's something fundamentally… _wrong_ about its existence. As if it shouldn't exist."

"You're not making any sense."

"I know," he conceded, nodding his head to the side. "It's a real mystery." He looked up at his erstwhile companion. "Isn't it fantastic?"

After giving him a good stare, the soldier squatted down beside him.

"Either you start talking in a language I can understand," he hissed quietly, "or I start pushing explosive buttons."

The Doctor sighed at how quickly the soldier had sucked the fun out of it. "Look, I can't explain this any better than I already have, because _I'm _trying to understand it. Although," he said, pulling his ear and looking innocently into the distance, "if I had my sonic screwdriver…"

Looking increasingly stressed, the soldier reached into a pocket and gave him the relevant implement.

He grinned. "You're a star, Captain…?" He looked to the soldier for some kind confirmation.

"Admiral…?"

Nothing.

"DCI…?"

Still nothing.

"King…?"

The soldier worked his jaw. "Will you _please_ just get on with this?"

"All right, all right, just trying to be polite," he replied, putting his hands up in surrender before getting to business. He fiddled with the screwdriver for a moment before applying it to the lock. Faster than he expected, it was done.

Impressed, the Doctor let out a curious 'Hm' noise, looking from the screwdriver to the lock.

"What?"

"My TARDIS is nowhere near as easy to open with the screwdriver. In fact, it's near impossible. You really have to jimmy the lock to-" he noticed the look on the soldiers face and stopped in his tracks. He cleared his throat sheepishly. "Anyway, it's… difficult to get into." He inspected the lock closer, running two fingers over it. "Must be fatigue…"

Tucking the screwdriver back into his pocket, he got up to go inside. Three soldiers thundered past him and into the TARDIS.

"Excuse me, but I opened it!"

His soldier friend grabbed him by the shoulder and tossed him in.

"Just get this thing working and find _our _Doctor. _If _you're telling us the truth."

"Well if I'm not, I'm doing a pretty awful job of killing you all, aren't I?"

"We'll see, won't we? Get to work."

Feeling ever so slightly annoyed at being constantly manhandled, the Doctor straightened his suit and brushed off his shoulder. After shooting a indignant look down his nose at the soldier, he wandered around the control panel, staring up at the transparent column that went from the panel to the ceiling.

He shivered. "Ooo… this feels even… wrong-er."

"What?" the soldier asked tiredly.

A deep frown worked it's way onto the Doctor's face as he looked around. "It's wrong; this whole place is just… wrong. Can't you feel it? It's like it just… shouldn't exist. Well not here, anyway." His gaze dropped to the control panel. "But! That's not what I'm here for, is it? Let's get this baby on the road!"

He slammed an enthusiastic hand down on an alignment orb, which promptly fell through the panel.

The Doctor stared down at the hole it had left.

"Well," he said simply. He looked up at the soldier, pointing at the offending hole. "That doesn't happen on _my _TARDIS, I can tell you." He noticed something on his hand. Frowning, he lifted it up to inspect it closer. "Hm," he added curiously, tracing his palm with his fingers.

"What is it _now?"_

"Don't take that tone with me, young man," he reprimanded, taking off his glasses and using them as a gesturing aid. "I'm helping _you _out, remember?"

The soldier grit his teeth. "What is it?"

"Dead skin," he said, showing his palm. "Not as pronounced as if, say, a human touched it, but still… dead skin."

"And? What about it?"

"Well, aside from needing a good moisturiser, I've got dead skin _exactly _where my hand touched the alignment orb."

"The what?"

With an exasperated groan, he waved a pointing finger at the hole in the panel. "The… thingy on the control panel."

Looking slightly annoyed at being kept out of the loop, the soldier closed the gap between them and stood beside him. "So? What does that mean?"

"It means," he said, his gaze travelled up and around the TARDIS, "that this place drains… life, basically. Or at least negates it. Kills it dead, just like that," he finished, snapping his fingers for clarification.

"We already knew that. You've been-"

"Ah ah. Not me," he said, waving a finger.

The soldier ground his jaw for what was about the hundredth time. This man would definitely need to see a dentist by the time this was all over. Or at least apply for some stress management. "The _other _Doctor has been using this… _thing_ to drain entire solar systems dry. Planets collapsing, suns fading away."

The Doctor nodded as he listened, chewing on the left temple of his glasses and letting them dangle from his mouth.

"Well," he said, removing them from his mouth and slipping them back onto his face, "it looks like that's its nature."

A wary glance up at the central column was the soldier's first response. "So… it's feeding on us?"

He nodded his hide from side to side. "I suppose you could put it that way. I'd need to have a better look around before I could tell you more."

His companion nodded numbly. But then he shook his head and the old lovely friendly soldier from before was back. "I don't want you to tell me more; I want you to help us find this other Doctor so we can kill him!"

The Doctor groaned in exasperation while he pulled out his sonic screwdriver. "All right, all right! You know something? _You _are a very rude man," he said, waving the screwdriver under the soldier's nose.

And with that, he set off underneath the control panel to see whether he could retrieve a fallen alignment orb from the depths of the TARDIS.

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The Doctor had been working solidly for a few hours now, only stopping now and then to check she wasn't doing anything suspicious or annoying. After recovering from the shock of the blow, Martha had inspected her arm. No broken bones, but one very ugly bruise was beginning to form.

_Try explaining __**this **__to mum._

"There! All done," the Doctor announced, hopping back like an artist appreciating his canvas. "You know, this TARDIS of yours is amazing. Does everything you ask it to, and best of all, it's not draining me to nothing every time I touch it!"

She frowned. TARDIS of _mine?_ What was he talking about?

His inane grin disappeared as he looked down at his watch in mock surprise. "Let's be off, shall we? I've got people expecting me!" With a mighty heave on a lever, the TARDIS started up.

Martha finally managed to find her voice. "Where are we going?"

"Drentax Five," he said nonchalantly, his eyes on the monitor.

A small glimmer of a smile pushed its way to Martha's lips. "So… you're going to find out what's wrong with you then?"

His laugh pierced her to the very core. "No, you silly woman! Because there's nothing wrong with me! Not exactly fit as a fiddle, true, but that should change pretty soon. You don't absorb an entire universes' worth of energy and end up unhealthy and withering, do you?"

"What… what are you talking about?"

He opened his mouth to reply, but suddenly blew out a tired breath. He waved a dismissive hand. "Nah, I'm bored now."

"But-"

"I said shut up!" he shouted. With a speed Martha hadn't thought possible, he moved over to so they were nose to nose. "If you want to survive this, I would recommend shutting up when I say so, and speaking when I say so. Then you can get back to whatever ponce-y excuse for a Doctor you've got in your universe."

Martha's frightened visage gave way to a confused frown. What did that mean? Was he someone posing as the Doctor? But he acted as though he were _called _the Doctor…

The TARDIS rumbled slightly around them, and the Doctor launched himself back to the control panel. "Ah! There we go! End of the line, Drentax Five! Ha! Nice little rhyme, don't you think?" he asked, not wanting an answer. "'End of the line, Drentax Five'! I've got talent!"

The TARDIS noise stopped, and the Doctor bounced over to the door, making a show of stepping over her and opening it. He put his fingers in his mouth and whistled.

"Boys!"

Then the noise started. Quietly at first, but it slowly became louder. The regular beating of metal against metal. A noise Martha had heard before. It was months ago. Working in the hospital, trying her best to ignore the ghosts that had been wandering around for weeks… and then suddenly they became men. Men made out of metal.

Cybermen.

A hauntingly familiar glint of silver made Martha scramble backwards on the floor. The Doctor grabbed her by the injured arm and heaved her to her feet. She bit down on the inside of her cheek to stop the yelp of pain she felt like releasing.

"Oh, come on now," he said, giving her arm a squeeze. "You welcomed me to your home. It's only right I let you see mine." He waved his arm through the air in a grand gesture.

He shoved her out of the TARDIS and into the waiting arms of a Cyberman. Except these weren't like the Cybermen that had captured her. The face was flat, with tubes framing the wider than usual head. What looked like pipes ran the length of their arms and led to a control panel on their fronts.

It made little difference, though. They were just as terrifying. The same dead eyes. The thin slit of a mouth that betrayed no emotion.

And no Doctor to save her. Just a psychotic madman who had stolen his face.

"Right! Take her to a room somewhere, chop chop!" he shouted, clapping his hands. "Make sure it's a room with a view of the planet."

He winked at her as the Cyberman holding her pulled her along, her heels dragging along the floor.

"This is where the fun begins."

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	5. Making Progress

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

(A/N: Thanks to Hhgbh for beta-ing!)

_**The Other Doctor**_

_**Chapter Four: Making Progress**_

There was a small explosion beneath the control panel. Sparks flew. For what felt like the hundredth time, the Doctor growled in frustration at yet _another _piece of the TARDIS that refused to work.

"Now you're just being difficult," he muttered, giving the offending clump of cable a good glare.

His soldier friend, who had been such a wonderful, faithful companion since he first arrived, sighed impatiently. "What's the problem? You said you could get this thing up and running."

The Doctor rolled his eyes underneath the control panel, mouthing a very rude (by human standards) word to the soldier. He slid himself out from under the control panel and stood up, hunching over it. "Yes, well, that was _before_."

"Before what?"

"Before I realised that this thing was a useless pile of rubbish!" he yelled, slamming his hand against the control panel.

Several of the soldiers raised their weapons at his outburst, but the soldier beside the Doctor waved them down with an apologetic look on his face.

He folded his arms. "So the great Doctor is stumped?"

"No. And by the way, I like that," he grinned. "'The Great Doctor'. Good for legends about me once I'm gone, don't you think? Anyway, I'm not stumped. I know exactly how to fix this TARDIS, but there's simply _too much _going wrong and rotting away. I fix one thing and it breaks as soon as I move on to the next. You'd need _ten_ Doctors to keep this thing running."

"Which we, _unfortunately_, don't have."

"Too true," he sighed, gazing down at another broken component.

"Captain Walker!"

No-one moved at the sound of the distant cry. The soldier kept on staring at the Doctor while he continued staring at the control panel. The Doctor looked at his companion curiously.

"Captain Walker!" A breathless young soldier rushed into the TARDIS. "I-" His voice caught in his throat as he saw the interior of the TARDIS.

"Thi… this is…"

"Bigger on the inside," both the Doctor and the soldier said simultaneously, shooting each other an irritated look after they did so.

"Time And Relative Dimension In Space TARDIS!" the Doctor said incredibly quickly, getting in the soldier's face.

The younger soldier looked to the Doctor's erstwhile friend.

"Captain, a report just came in from-"

"Captain!" the Doctor happily pronounced, holding his arms out as though he might hug the man. "So, you're a Captain, eh? I know a Captain! Well, quite a few actually, but he's the most recent one. Well, the most recent one I've travelled with. And I say recent, I mean quite awhile ago. Well, I say quite awhile ago, I mean-"

"What's on the report, Sloan?" Walker interrupted, ignoring the Time Lord.

Sloan shuffled nervously as he spoke, his floppy blond hair reminding the Doctor of his fifth incarnation. Surely soldiers weren't allowed such styles? Not that he particularly cared. He was just happy to have something to call his shadow. It seemed like he wasn't going to be rid of these people for some time, might as well get to know them. At least, that was what the Doctor figured.

"There's activity coming from the moon base."

Walker frowned. "What kind of activity?"

"Life signs, power, life support, everything."

"What kind of life signs?"

"Time Lord and human."

The Doctor, who had thus far been watching the conversation like a tennis match, suddenly poked his head into the conversation, taking his hands out of his pockets.

"Time Lord _and _human?"

After nervously glancing at Walker, Sloan nodded to the Doctor.

Walker just stared at the Doctor.

"See? Not me!" he announced triumphantly, bounding around the control panel and getting to work. "But obviously he looks like me because a friend of mine's with him."

"And he-"

"She."

"She can't tell the difference?" Walker asked incredulously.

He paused for a moment as he thought about it. "Must be a _superb_ actor. Never particularly good at it myself." He got back to work.

"What are you doing?"

The Doctor continued his work as though Walker hadn't spoken. "Getting this TARDIS ready for travel."

Walker looked to the other soldiers in the room before looking to the Doctor in confusion. "I thought you said it would need ten Doctors to get this thing working."

"Oh, didn't I mention?" He stopped and grinned. "I'm brilliant."

Walker blinked and exchanged a glance with Sloan. The young soldier offered a shrug.

"One trip!" the Doctor said excitedly, raising a digit. "This old girl could manage just about one more trip up to that moon base."

"Just one? How do we get back?"

"Well, if it's my friend and this other Doctor, then he's using my TARDIS. Once we're up there, we find it, get my friend, and bob's your uncle, we're back home!"

Walker once again looked to Sloan, who mouthed 'bob's your uncle' questioningly. The Captain closed his eyes and shook his head, telling the soldier not to bother. He returned his attention to the Doctor.

"Fine. How long will it take to get her ready?"

The Doctor stopped and blew out a long breath as he rocked his head from side to side in thought. "Ten minutes, and I _mean _ten minutes. I'll have to go as soon as I'm done with the last of the repairs or something else will go wrong and I'll have to start _all_ over again."

"All right!" the Captain yelled, addressing the five soldiers inside the TARDIS. "We leave in ten minutes, so I expect you armed and back here in five!" He looked to Sloan.

"Sloan, arm yourself, tell the squadron to stand by for a bomb strike, and get back here." His attention returned to the soldiers. "We'll get in, destroy the shield generators, and get out! Understood?"

"Yes, sir!" came the united response.

"Move it!"

All of the soldiers thundered out of the TARDIS, slamming the door behind them. The Doctor and the Captain remained behind in silence, the only noise the soothing generator thrumming all around them.

"Get in, destroy the shield generators… but I want Skywalker alive!" the Doctor said to himself, knotting some wires together before pointing his screwdriver at them.

"What?"

"Nothing," he said, clambering under the control panel, "just saw something similar to this once."

"And how did it end?"

"Evil galactic empire fell, pure and true rebellion celebrated… the usual stuff."

"You've seen a lot of wars, Doctor?"

He didn't reply; he just kept on working.

That was all the reply the Captain needed, apparently. He checked his handgun and his ammunition supplies. He didn't want to run out before he had the chance to lodge a bullet into the Doctor's forehead.

The Doctor hummed away absently behind him.

Well… before he had a chance to lodge a bullet into _his _Doctor's forehead. This one was growing on him.

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Martha walked to her door and peeked through the small window to see both Cybermen still stood vigilantly on either side of her doorway. Not that she was surprised. It's not like they had to go and take a toilet breaks or anything. Sighing dejectedly, she returned to the other side of the room, looking out the viewport there that held a view of the stars.

Despite everything, she was impressed with the rooms the Doctor had here. Huge king sized beds, wardrobes where she could only imagine how many clothes could be fit inside… Martha frowned. No. He wasn't the Doctor. At least, not _her _Doctor. The way he talked, the way he acted… it was more than just the Doctor being influenced… he had been possessed or replaced or… something along those lines.

And judging by the fact that he had his own base hidden on Drentax Five somewhere, she was leaning more towards the 'replaced' option.

She hissed in pain as she tenderly removed the sling she had placed her arm in upon arriving about half an hour ago. Although she knew better as a medical student, the desire to keep on checking on the bruise kept on winning through. Not that there was anything she could do. This Doctor wasn't likely to roll out the First Aid kit for her.

Martha nearly leapt out of her skin when the noise of a loud, piercing klaxon filled the air. She quickly rushed to the door and looked out the window placed at head height there.

The two Cybermen exchanged what could be interpreted as a glance and a nod before setting off for whatever had provoked the alarms. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Martha pushed open the unlocked door (why lock a door being guarded by Cybermen, after all) and snuck out into the hallway, sprinting in the opposite direction the Cybermen went.

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Looking more panicked than Walker would have liked, the Doctor ran around the control panel, rotating orbs and working pumps like some clown sideshow at a circus. The steady wheeze of the TARDIS sounded positively deathly as it struggled to keep them aloft. The Captain assumed 'aloft' was the correct term. He wasn't exactly sure how a TARDIS worked.

With a sudden thud the TARDIS finally touched down, and everything was suddenly quiet. The Doctor, looking tired after continually sprinting around the control room for five minutes, nodded to Walker. He, in turn, nodded to his men.

The five soldiers poured out of the TARDIS, led by their Captain and followed by the Doctor, whose hands remained firmly in his pockets as he idly looked around.

"I must say, this other Doctor has fabulous taste. Although," he added, looking a wall up and down, "the paint job could use a bit of work."

A familiar clanging noise assaulted his ears, and he turned around in alarm.

"What the hell is that?" one of the soldiers demanded.

"Marching," the Doctor said, knowing what was coming. "There are Cybermen on this moon." He grabbed the Captain by the arm and turned him around. "Your Doctor has Cybermen working for him."

"Cybermen?"

"Machines with people trapped inside, using them like fuel. Devoid of any emotion and with only one purpose; to take good stock for processing and destroy anything that resists or doesn't conform."

"What?" one of the soldiers scoffed. "That kind of thing was made illegal centuries ago."

The Doctor ignored him. "You can't stop them, not like this," he said plainly, staring into Walker's eyes. "All you can do is run."

The clanging grew ever louder, and the door opened. Three Cybermen advanced through the doorway. The soldiers opened fire. The bullets deflected harmlessly off the Cybermen's solid metallic chassis. Feeling a slight sense of déjà vu, the Doctor forcibly lowered the soldier's weapons for them.

"Stop it! It won't work!"

They all looked to Walker for approval, who just gave them a quick nod, not wanting to take his eyes off the approaching enemy for too long. The soldiers steadily backed away as they approached, moving closer to the TARDIS.

"Where?" Walker asked, looking to the Doctor.

The Doctor looked around the room before focusing his gaze on the Cybermen again. He frowned. "Hang on," he said, putting on his glasses and staring more intensely at the approaching enemy.

Two of the soldiers looked over their shoulders questioningly. "Captain?"

He in turn looked desperately to the Doctor. "Well? Open fire?"

"No, not yet!" he said irritably, his focus completely on the Cybermen.

"Well I've got to do _something_!"

The Doctor grinned. "Oh, you beauty!" He looked back to Walker. "Back into the TARDIS!"

"What? Why?"

The Cybermen were almost upon them. Needing little more encouragement, the soldiers ran into the TARDIS, and the Doctor locked the door behind them.

"Right!" he announced, grinning and pulling out his wallet. "Now I might have told a slight fib about the contents of my wallet. I've got some gold coins in here as well."

"So?" Walker asked, frustrated.

The Time Lord didn't look at him as he rifled around in his wallet. "These particular Cybermen are a type I haven't seen in a long time. And _they _had one particular weakness. Give me three bullets."

Walker pulled out a clip from one of his pockets and handed over the bullets. "Why three?"

"Three Cybermen," he replied in a 'duh' tone of voice. He sat cross legged on the floor as he lay the coins down on the floor with the bullets. He picked up a coin and a bullet with one hand, while holding his sonic screwdriver over them with the other.

A few minutes later, he handed them back to Walker.

"There!"

The Captain inspected them. "You've… encased them in gold?"

"Gold tippedbullets. Gold is a weakness of this particular type of Cyberman."

"So we get three shots?"

"That would be accurate, my dear Captain."

He loaded one into his own weapon while handing the others to two soldiers. "Make them count," he said grimly.

"Aim for the head," the Doctor added quietly. "The brain is the only part of them that's alive. Get rid of that, and… they've got nothing."

Walker nodded, and the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver, aiming at the lock on the TARDIS doors. The soldiers backed up, two of them following their captain's lead and loading their weapons with a golden bullet.

"Ready?"

Walker nodded again.

The last of the Time Lords pressed a button on the screwdriver and pulled the door open. He ran out of the line of fire as quickly as he could.

Three Cybermen burst through.

"Ready!" Walker bellowed.

The Cybermen continued onwards.

"Aim!"

No sign of stopping.

"Fire!"

Three gunshots rang through the TARDIS control room, and a bullet hole appeared in the each of the Cybermen's heads. After a brief pause, they fell to the ground, twitching helplessly.

There was silence for only a moment as the solders looked at their handiwork. Walker started shouting again.

"All right! No time to mess around, let's move it!" The soldiers piled out of the TARDIS, leaving just the two of them once again. He turned to the Doctor, who had walked over to the now inert Cybermen, staring into their faces.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."

"Doctor."

He looked up at him.

"Can you find your TARDIS?"

The Doctor nodded and walked out of the TARDIS with the captain. "But I've got a friend here. I want her safe." He pointed a warning finger in his face. "If any of your men shoot her or hurt her, any deal is off."

Walker straightened up. "Don't forget, I've still got those explosives."

With a tight little smile, the Doctor tugged on his ear and looked past him for a moment. "Actually, no, you don't. The TARDIS rotted them away while I was working on her. So all you've got to go on now is the fact that I'm just a _really_ nice person." He lowered his head in an Anne Robinson way. "Understand?"

After a second of consideration, Walker nodded. "Sloan, you and Robertson with the Doctor. You help him find his TARDIS and secure it. If you shoot him or the TARDIS, I will shoot you. Got that?"

The Time Lord looked to him and grinned with arms outstretched, ready for a hug. "You _do _care!"

"Don't read too much into this," he muttered. "The rest of you, with me! We'll find those shield generators and blow them to hell!"

The soldiers roared their approval and followed him out.

The two remaining members of Walker's squad looked awkwardly to the Doctor, not used to taking orders from the enemy.

"So… where are we going?"

"Not too sure, really."

The soldiers exchanged a glance. "I thought you knew where we were going?" Sloan asked worriedly.

"I do!" The Doctor shrugged. "Sort of. It's more of a feeling than anything else."

"Um… okay… so where do your feelings tell us to go?"

The Doctor closed his eyes and took a breath. "Maybe… to the right after we get out the door."

He led the way, leaving two very worried soldiers behind him, looking to each other cluelessly.

"'Maybe'?"

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The 'Doctor' took a long breath, and Martha could have sworn she saw his eye twitch as he spoke into the comm. "Wait… did you _leave _the girl alone in her room? _Unguarded?"_

"_There was a security breach," _the Cyberman replied, its' voice a slightly higher pitch than the Cybermen that Martha knew. Not that that made them any less terrifying.

"Answer the question," the Doctor seethed, clenching his fist and his jaw.

"_There was a security breach."_

Martha tried not to jump from her hiding place when the Doctor slammed an angry fist into the table, denting it. "I don't care! That woman knows things about the TARDIS! Find her and get her back!"

"_What of the intruders?"_

"You have circuit boards for brains! Multitask!"

With an angry swipe of his hand, he switched off the comm device.

This Doctor's quarters were equally lush as hers had been, if not a little bit more extravagant. Red carpets with golden trimming, chandelier… It made Martha wonder if her Doctor liked such things. The fake Time Lord launched himself from his chair and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. He fished into his jacket pocket, pulling out some cube shaped device that needed working on.

Martha couldn't help but smile inwardly, in spite of the situation. She supposed the two Doctors weren't that different; both used work as a way of relieving stress.

He absentmindedly wandered to where she was hidden behind a support strut until his back was to her.

Bundling up all her courage, she leapt out. Her foot caught on the strut, making a loud noise and causing him to turn. She slammed straight into him, knocking him on his back and sending the cube device flying away.

He thumbed a dial on the screwdriver and pointed it at her. She lashed out with her good arm, knocking the laser blast from the screwdriver into the ceiling above her. Sparks rained down from the small explosion.

"What the hell?" she gasped.

Taking advantage of her surprise, the Doctor pointed the screwdriver at her face again. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed his wrist and banged it against the floor, sending the screwdriver rattling across the room.

Giving her captor a kick in the 'nads for good measure, Martha scrambled to the screwdriver and scooped it up just as she felt the Doctor's hand on her ankle. She pointed the screwdriver at him, right between the eyes.

"Let go. Now." Her voice was amazingly steady.

His grip tightened.

"Now!" she screamed, firing off a warning shot just over his shoulder and into the wall. Sparks flew, but his gaze never faltered.

"Give me that, you silly little girl," he hissed, his teeth clenched together so hard she could hear them creaking.

"Let go," she repeated, her grip on the screwdriver tightening.

His jaw clenched. "Who do you think you are? You can't tell me what to-"

She fired it at his hand, engulfing it in blue energy. He screamed and let go, falling onto his back and clutching his wrist.

Quicker than she ever thought possible, Martha was on her feet and pointing the screwdriver down at him.

"I warned you!" she yelled.

He continued screaming. Just as she was beginning to worry about him, the noise from him subsided. He slowly moved his head over to look at her.

"You… you shot my hand," he gasped, disbelieving.

"You didn't let go!"

"But you shot my hand! It'll fall off now!"

"What?"

"Do you know _anything _about me? At all?"

"Well… can't you grow your hand back or something?"

"No! What the hell would give you that idea?!"

Martha actually started thinking of an answer, but then remembered where she was and just shook her head. "Look, I wish I could say I was sorry, but I'm not. Now, we're going to go back to the TARDIS, and you're going to help me find _my _Doctor."

"If…" he grunted in pain as he heaved himself to his feet. "If you want your Doctor… you won't have to go to the TARDIS."

She frowned. "What?"

"He's here," he said, nodding to a monitor propped up on his desk. "Probably looking for his own TARDIS."

Martha grinned. "He's here?"

Looking extremely put upon, the 'Doctor' nodded.

She tried to bypass her unsurpassed joy that the real Doctor was coming to find her. She needed to ask questions that the Doctor would ask.

"So… if you're not my Doctor, who are you?"

"Very… very… annoyed," he muttered. Faster than Martha could have ever predicted, he leapt forward and lashed out with his left hand, knocking the screwdriver from her grasp.

As she went for it, the 'Doctor' pulled out another weapon from his jacket, this one looking like a pistol. She tried to go for the screwdriver anyway.

"Don't," he managed.

Martha tried to hide her fear at how familiar the weapon looked. "That's… that's from a Dalek."

He nodded, looking at the weapon. "Very good. Yes, this was from… oh, a few universes back."

"And… is that where those Cybermen are from?"

"No, they were from-" he stopped himself and smiled. "You're very good, do you know that? I was ready to tell all! Imagine."

Suddenly the whole room shook wildly, and Martha went for the gun. The 'Doctor' easily avoided the clumsy grab and pushed her over. She landed on her injured arm, and once again bit down to stop herself from crying out. Keeping his makeshift Dalek weapon trained on her, the 'Doctor' went to the comm.

"Cyber-leader, _please_ report," he said, sounding increasingly stressed.

"_Shield generators down. Incoming ships detected. Requesting orders."_

The 'Doctor' grit his teeth. "Get to the TARDIS."

"_Affirmative."_

He closed the channel and looked to Martha. "Let's go, shall we?" he breathed, gesturing with the weapon.

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The Doctor stopped at a junction, looking first one away, than the other. He sucked on a finger and held it up in the air.

"Okay… that way." He pointed to the right and started walking. Before the soldiers could even begin following him, he stopped.

"No, no, tell a lie… _that _way," he said, pointing in the opposite direction, whirling on his heel. The soldiers exchanged another cautious glance.

"I'm sure this time," he said, his voice going up a defensive octave.

Shaking their heads, the two followed their Time Lord guide down the corridor until they came to some closed cargo bay doors with a keypad beside it. Above the number was a palm-print scanner, which, the Doctor presumed, took DNA readings as well.

"Hang on," Sloan said slowly. "This is right next to the cargo bay we arrived in!"

The Doctor, trying to inspect the control pad, rolled his eyes. "Look, the link between a Time Lord and his TARDIS can be tenuous at best, all right? Sometimes the TARDIS can be in a bad mood, sometimes I can be grumpy… a whole _host _of complicated issues."

"So… mood swings?"

"Is there anything more complicated?"

After silence the Doctor took as a reluctant agreement, he returned to his work. He 'hmm'ed as he put on his glasses and inspected the DNA scanner closer. He shrugged and put his hand on the relevant indentation. After a few moments of beeping and flashing lights – which made the soldiers back up a foot and a half - it made a small affirmative 'ding' noise, and the door opened.

The Doctor took a moment to frown at his palm, wondering if the device had done any damage.

Sloan and Robertson wasted no time getting into the cargo bay, and the Doctor followed them in, hands in pockets. He grinned at what stood before him.

"Have you ever seen anything so beautiful in all your life?" he said, practically hopping and skipping over to the TARDIS.

Sloan nodded to Robertson. "Call it in."

As he did so, the Doctor put the key in the lock, and Sloan pointed his weapon at him.

"We're not going yet."

"Oh, for the love of… I'm just going inside!"

"The captain said to secure and find the TARDIS. Not to get inside."

He groaned, exasperated. "But we can get away quicker this way! I'm not going to leave you now, I've got a friend up here!"

"We don't have any proof that the human life sign is your friend. Until I get told otherwise by Captain Walker, we're not going anywhere. All right?"

The Doctor glared at him. When that didn't work, he put his hands in his pockets huffily and rested back against the door, crossing his legs.

"Fine," he said simply, pointing an irritated finger at Sloan, "but I'm not happy with you."

"Sloan," Robertson said, returning from the doorway. "I'm not getting any response from the captain."

Sloan frowned. "Are you sure?"

He nodded. "Nothing."

"I'll try mine." He did so, speaking into the radio. The only response he got was static.

"Sir, come in. Sir? Captain Walker, we have secured the TARDIS, please respond." He looked to Robertson worriedly, sparing only a glance in the Doctor's direction before returning to his radio.

"Base, this is Sloan. How many life signs are you reading?"

Static followed for a few moments.

"_Three humans, two Time Lords."_

It took a few minutes to sink in for Sloan. He seemed to lose all control of his body. His legs collapsed under his weight and his gun fell clattering to the floor. Robertson stood and watched. The Doctor recognised Robertson's demeanour; resignation. Obviously one soldier had seen more death and felt the pain of loss more than the other.

The Doctor didn't move from where he was stood. "I'm sorry." He genuinely was. He thought that sometimes it sounded like a worthless platitude, something he would just _say _when bad things happened to good people. But he was always sorry.

Robertson was the first to recover. "Sloan… you're… you're the ranking officer now."

Sloan barely heard him, moving his head up numbly to meet his fellow soldier's gaze.

His fellow soldier gripped him by the arm, resolving to take control of the situation for himself. He futilely tried to pull the younger man to his feet. "Sloan? Did you hear me? This place is going to get obliterated any minute. We have to go."

"Not without my friend," the Doctor interjected quietly, but with no less force than if he had shouted.

"Screw your friend!" Robertson yelled, releasing Sloan's arm and walking straight up to the Doctor. "We're alone up here, and I for one want to see that other Doctor fry for this!"

His reply was interrupted by a distant voice that the Doctor knew all too well.

"Let me go!"

He grinned and pushed himself from his laid back position against the TARDIS. Martha.

"Would you shut up!"

The grin vanished. That voice sounded familiar too. _Too _familiar.

Then, around the corner came Martha and, pulling her by the arm… himself.

Another Doctor. Looking exactly the same. Same wild eyes. Same messy hair. Same suit and coat, although a little more worse for wear.

His doppelganger was similarly overtaken with surprise. The Doctor wondered if their expressions were identical right now. Like that Marx Brothers sketch he was so fond of.

Robertson took advantage of the sudden freeze frame and took aim at the other Doctor.

The Doctor rushed forward. "Don't, you'll hit Martha!"

Robertson fired just as the Doctor pushed his gun away and to the side. The other Doctor ducked as the bullets ricocheted loudly behind his head against the wall. Martha shrieked and covered her ears.

Looking very disturbed by the event, the other Doctor took aim with some kind of weapon. A laser blast sprang out and hit Robertson, the blast illuminating his skeleton in a way the Doctor found horrifically familiar.

It was a Dalek weapon. A handheld Dalek weapon.

Robertson didn't even get a chance to scream.

Sloan, who had been sat numbly watching, leapt to his feet, screaming. He whipped his gun around, firing seemingly wildly at the other Doctor. The Doctor ran over to him and tackled him to the ground in time to avoid the expected laser blast and to save Martha from any stray bullets.

The retaliating laser blast never came.

The Doctor and Sloan looked over and saw the other Time Lord clutching at his stomach, blood tricking down between his fingers. His expression looked somewhere between disbelief and rage. The Doctor knew the feeling.

He had fallen back against the wall, but his grip on Martha held steadfast. He quickly pulled her along down the corridor, pointing the Dalek gun at her the entire time.

The Doctor raced out of the cargo bay and into the corridor in time to see the doors to the next cargo bay down slam shut. The cargo bay with the other TARDIS inside.

With an irritated groan, the Doctor sprinted back to the TARDIS, nigh-on slamming through the door as he pulled out his key and rushed inside.

"Sloan!" he yelled, leaving the door open as he feverishly started the controls. He could see where the other Doctor's touch had degraded his TARDIS.

No reply.

"Sloan, we have to go _now! _You can mourn once we're gone!"

Still nothing.

The Doctor prepared the TARDIS for departure, aligning the sensors to track his doppelganger. "Sloan! I'll go without you if I have to, but I really, _really _don't want to!"

After another few agonising seconds of silence, the door opened. Numbly, the young soldier pulled himself through and closed them behind him, moving robotically. With that done, he wandered over to a small corner of the control room and collapsed into it, staring blankly ahead.

The Doctor, as satisfied as he reasonably could be, pulled the relevant lever with far more force than usual. The familiar and welcome wheezing of the TARDIS engine filled the room, the central column displaying his ship at work.

The base exploded just as the TARDIS faded away.

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(A/N: Thanks for all the reviews and kind words! They really are very much appreciated. Now, I'm going to away for the next two weeks or so, but I promise that the next chapter will be up post-haste as soon as I return!

That said… review time!)


	6. Changes

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

(A/N: Thanks to Hhgbh for beta stuff!)

_**The Other Doctor**_

_**Chapter Five: Changes**_

The TARDIS rocked and buffeted under the waves of the time vortex, and Martha struggled to hold on to the support strut as the other Doctor worked feverishly on the controls, sweating buckets and becoming increasingly pale. He had given up stopping the bleeding from his gut about half a second after ending up in the TARDIS, and was looking pretty worse the wear for it. His right hand, which Martha had struck with the sonic screwdriver laser earlier, was beginning to show signs of decay itself, just as the TARDIS had done. His own strange nature turned against him.

The five Cybermen gathered in the control room stopped her from doing much about it, though. She didn't even dare make a run for it. She remembered how one of her fellow medical students had tried just such a manoeuvre during the Canary Wharf incident. He had managed to get past one Cyberman only to be confronted and killed by two more in the corridor outside. Martha hadn't seen what they'd done to him, but judging by the noises he made, it wasn't anything good.

The 'Doctor' gasped and buckled over in pain. Instinctively she made a move to go to him. It was half doctor's instinct and half concern for her friend. Another sudden lurch of the floor quickly made her reconsider, and she wrapped her arms around the strut tighter, if that were possible.

Not to mention - as she realised from seeing the real Doctor in that cargo bay - this man was _anything _but her friend right now. Even so, the resemblance kept on tricking her, at least on a subconscious level.

Said doppelganger yelled in frustration and slammed his fist into the console, making sparks fly out. His manic stare fell on her.

"Your friend, as handsome as he is, just doesn't give up, does he? Reminds me of… well, me!" he said, his laughter at his own joke quickly descending into coughing. Blood spattered against the hand he used to cover his mouth.

It took Martha a moment to find her voice. Even if he was insane, he was still a living creature. "You need help."

His scowl was incredulous and insulting all in one go. "You're _concerned _for me? Honestly, how stupid can you be?"

The TARDIS rocked again, this time groaning in protest. The lights flickered. The other Doctor looked around the room, gasping for air. He went to the monitor and checked some settings.

"Well," he managed, seemingly wincing from the effort of speaking. "Looks like… I'm going to have to set down." He slapped a few different buttons and levers, bringing the noise level of the TARDIS down.

Just as the engine stopped its' laboured wheezing, he moved towards her.

Suddenly she had strength in her legs, and she stood up, her back to the strut. "What are you going to do?"

"Well…" he scrunched up his features and clutched his stomach, leaning forward. "First I'm going to change… and then I'm going to use _you _to get away from _him_. That sound okay to you? No? Really? Because… I could really care less right now."

Martha's eyes widened, and she moved back even more, trying to put the support strut between them. He was glowing. Her Doctor didn't glow.

"Are you all right?"

He jutted out his bottom lip and bobbed his head from side to side sarcastically. "Not really. Just been shot. Sort of… dying, you know?" He managed to gasp out a pained little laugh. "But not to worry, I'll be as fit as a fiddle in a few seconds."

"W… how?"

His look bordered on the 'stupid human' look her Doctor gave her. This look, however, seemed far more malicious. "Your Doctor hasn't told you much about him, has he? _Degeneration_ ringing any bells?"

She vaguely remembered the Doctor making some oblique references to having different faces, but as usual with him she had no idea whether he was being serious or funny with her.

As the 'Doctor' exploded in yellow energy in front of her, she decided that she'd really have to learn the distinction between the two someday.

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"He's stopping," the Doctor announced, not really caring whether or not Sloan heard him. The young soldier had been sat in the corner of the room since entering the TARDIS, and it didn't look like his almost comatose state was going to change any time soon. If Martha hadn't have been in such mortal danger, he probably would have given him some words of sympathy. Of course, if Martha wasn't in mortal danger she would probably be in the TARDIS with him, so she could give Sloan some words of sympathy. His companions were always better at such things, anyway.

He throttled down the TARDIS and let it land a few meters from wherever that other Doctor had landed his. They were on some abandoned moon with a vaguely breathable atmosphere, so that was something. At least that other Doctor wasn't going to be able to shove Martha out of the door and watch her suffocate. But then again, he had no idea how this other Doctor would act.

He still couldn't believe it. Another Doctor. The resemblance was uncanny. He had no idea that Time Lords could exist in alternate realities. He had thought it impossible, seeing as Time Lords were the ones that allowed interdimensional travel to be possible in the first place.

But then again, the Doctor was always on the lookout for things that were impossible. It was just a shame that the impossible things were almost always deadly.

The TARDIS landed gently, and the Doctor waited, staring intently at the monitor, sparing the occasional glance to his silent companion.

"Sloan? You awake?"

Nothing.

"Sloan, we really don't have time for this!"

The half comatose soldier tilted his head up to look at him, but didn't say anything.

"Look, I'm very sorry for what's happened, but I need your help to save Martha. Please."

Sloan just let his head drop a little, staring at the lattice metal floor. The Doctor made a move to go over to him when he saw the door to the other TARDIS open through the monitor. Sparing one millisecond long glance at Sloan, he ran to the doors. The Doctor couldn't remember ever opening them so fast.

Keeping his eyes on the other TARDIS, the Doctor stepped out. His hands were firmly stuffed in his trouser pockets, his fist wrapped around the sonic screwdriver. Not that it would _help_ in a hostage situation, but maybe the other Doctor was gullible.

First Martha stepped out of the other TARDIS. The Doctor gave her what he hoped was a reassuring look, and turned his attention to the hand holding her arm, preparing himself for the mirror image that would step forth.

But then a face that the Doctor expected never to see again appeared, holding Martha by the arm and pointing his Dalek weapon at her. All the Doctor could think about was that moment on the TARDIS, the way the temporal energy burned through his body. Rose looking on in complete terror and hopeless confusion.

"_Before I go, I just want to tell you: you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And you know what? So was I."_

His previous face, staring back at him.

"Surprised?" he said, his forehead wrinkling as his eyebrows shot up, a smug smile creasing his features. That thick northern accent was already seeping through.

"More than you might think…" the Doctor answered quietly, unable to take his eyes off him.

"I don't think this suit and tie look is working for me anymore, though." He gestured down to his clothes, now looking a little bit small for him.

The Doctor ignored the comment. "Let her go."

"In a minute," the other Doctor protested. He looked to Martha. "Impatient, isn't he?" He returned his attention to the Doctor, although he kept his weapon trained on his hostage. "First things first. Where are you from?"

"I'm not answering any questions until you let her go."

"Oh, please. The minute I let her go you get some soldier boy to leap out and shoot me to death. Not that it would work, mind you. You'd just find another brand new face staring back at you." To accentuate the point, he grinned.

"Well…" the Doctor muttered, his tone quietly flippant, "maybe not _brand new…"_

The other Doctor frowned at that, and his smile diminished slightly. "So. Where are you from?"

"Another reality."

His expression didn't change. "_Which_ reality?"

"What do you mean, _which _reality?" the Doctor scowled, confused. "There's no great big catalogue of parallel realities!"

His doppelganger ignored his outburst. "How did you get here?"

"We fell. There was a hole in the time vortex."

"A hole?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes, a hole." Realisation dawned. "That _you _made when you got here from… whatever backwards kind of universe you come from."

He laughed, arching his back from the hilarity of it all. "_My _universeis backwards? _Mine?_ You're joking! Every reality but mine seems to go in the wrong direction!" he shouted accusingly, squeezing Martha's arm. The Doctor noticed how Martha winced.

"It took me months in one reality just to get used to how people talk! You start at the end of a conversation and work your way backwards, how hard is that? No, I had to get used to having conversations that _went _somewhere!"

The Doctor's worried frown was quickly becoming a confused mess of wrinkles on his forehead as he listened to his counterpart talk.

"And then that reality died," he continued on lightly, "so I had to punch my way into the next one to get the energy I needed."

"The energy that you needed… for what?"

He waved his hand at him, using the Dalek weapon as a make shift finger. "Ah, ah. You might _think _you're clever, but you're not. You see, during those first precious hours of a new form, my mind works perfectly," he said, knocking the weapon against his temple.

"And then what happens?"

"Oh, come on. As if I'd tell you everything!" he scoffed. "Where's the fun in that?" He laughed for a few moments before suddenly wiping the smile from his face. "Now. Give me your sonic screwdriver."

"What? Why?"

He smiled and roughly jammed the gun into Martha's side. She tried not to squirm at the feeling of the weapon beneath her ribs.

"All right, all right!" The Doctor lifted it from his pocket and tossed the screwdriver to the ground.

He gave the Doctor an irritated look. "You," he said, gesturing to Martha. "Pick it up and put it in my jacket pocket."

After a long look to the Doctor for confirmation, she did so. The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief. He thought she would try to attack the other Doctor, which wouldn't have been recommended. During those first few hours of regeneration there were all kinds of strange things happening within the Time Lord body. Sometimes they went a bit unstable, sometimes amnesia, and sometimes the effects were physical, like an increase in strength.

"Okay. You've got the sonic screwdriver. You've got your answers. Now just let. Her. Go."

The other Doctor suddenly gasped, as though excited about some new concept that had popped into his head.

"Better plan. Instead, how about I give you _her_," he roughly tossed Martha to the ground in front of the Doctor, "and then I kill you both?"

He pointed the Dalek weapon at them. Martha quickly turned and pointed what looked like a sonic screwdriver at him. The Doctor could only look on, confused as hell, as a blue laser hit the Dalek weapon dead on, blasting it from the other Doctor's hand and sending it arching through the air away from him.

The Doctor, now kneeling behind Martha supportively, grinned and laughed loudly.

After shooting them both a scowl of epic proportions, the other Doctor launched himself into his TARDIS before Martha could get off another shot and took off, the police box quickly fading from view.

The Doctor grabbed Martha gently by the hand and pulled her into the TARDIS. He let her go as soon as they were inside, sprinting to the controls. As he worked, he spared her a quick glance.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." She was holding herself. "He just… scared me a bit is all."

"Well, he did have the scary wide eyes," he said, giving her a wry smile.

"Well he doesn't anymore. What's going on with that?"

"No idea. But I can't wait to find out! Allons-y!" he shouted, grinning inanely as he yanked down a lever and the TARDIS sprang to life. Everything back to normal at last. Well, maybe not _exactly _normal , but it was close enough for the Doctor to start enjoying himself again. He looked over to Martha, loving the feeling.

His smile disappeared when he saw something small and silver hop out of her jacket pocket. It sprouted four wire width legs before scuttling along the floor and into the TARDIS control panel.

"Quickly, stop it, stop it!" he shouted, pointing at it as he ran over to where it had disappeared. Martha just looked from side to side cluelessly. He almost skidded to the floor where the spider thing had leapt into the control panel.

"What the hell is it?!" Martha shouted back, crouching beside him on all fours.

"Never mind that, just try and reach it!"

The Doctor heard the sound of a small laser beam. Sparks flew from underneath, and the TARDIS struggled under the strain. The Doctor ran back to the monitor, working the controls.

"Oh, no, no, no!"

"What's wrong?" Martha said, still on all fours but trying desperately to peek over the control panel at the Doctor.

"The TARDIS is going to crash land! Just try and find that thing and kill it!"

"Right!" She thought for a moment. "How do you kill a robot spider?"

More sparks flew, and Martha shielded her eyes. She opened them again in time to see the spider leaping out of the control panel and towards her. With an alarmed yelp, she fell on her back, the spider missing her completely. It scuttled towards the stairs.

"Martha, it's going to the stairs!"

She scrambled to her feet and over to the robot spider as it disappeared down the steps and around the corner. She was dashing down after it when she heard a metallic crunch and a high pitched whine.

A blond haired soldier walked around the corner, holding the crushed remains of the robot spider in his hand.

"I, um… found this."

He numbly dropped the remains in her hands and wandered past her up the stairs. Martha just watched him go by in a strange mix of confusion and wonder. Confusion at who the hell he was, wonder at how he had crushed the spider robot thing with his bare hands.

The soldier went over to the corner of the room and sat there in a way reminiscent of a homeless man. Martha half expected him to cover himself up with a blanket of newspapers.

Martha walked to the Doctor and put the splattered robot on the control panel beside him.

"There you go," she said simply, as though she had just gone out shopping for him.

He looked down at it but didn't say anything, instead returning his focus to something on the monitor. The engines were still going, but is sounded a little more strained than usual. At least the rumbling of the TARDIS had stopped.

"So… who's that then?" she asked quietly, nodding to the man curled up in the corner.

The Doctor continued looking at the monitor, taping random parts of the screen here and there. "Sloan. He's a soldier from Drentax Five."

"A soldier?" She looked over at him, and then back to the Doctor.

"Yep."

"I've been meaning to ask you about that. I thought you said this was a beach resort."

"Well, not in this reality," he shrugged. "That… other Doctor has been slowly destroying this universe, degrading it to nothing. That's why the usually beautiful scenery of the planet has been turned into a wasteland. I imagine the same thing is happening around the universe."

She nodded. Martha started tapping her fingers on the control panel absently. She took a breath. "Doctor?"

"Hm?"

"When he changed his face, he said something about… degeneration."

His head whipped around to look at her, eyes wide. "What?"

"Degeneration."

He tilted his head and looked at her like she was mad. "Not _re_generation?"

"No, he definitely said degeneration."

Confusion wrought his features and he looked away into the control panel. "Degeneration, what?" he muttered to himself. The monitor beeped, and he let out a frustrated groan as he returned his attention to it. "That thing did too much damage. I'm going to have to land the TARDIS and repair it before we can go after him."

After pressing a few random buttons, pulling some levers and rotating some control orbs, the TARDIS gently touched down. With a satisfied smile, he looked over at her.

"So. You _are_ all right?" he said quietly, giving her his full attention for the first time since she returned.

"Yeah. Yeah, I will be. Just a little shaken up is all. I mean… he looked so much like you…" she rubbed her arm.

That caught his attention, and his eyes were drawn to her arm. "What?"

She opened her mouth to tell him, but then reconsidered it. "…it's nothing, really."

"Martha. Show me your arm." His tone reminded Martha of the way her mum would talk to her after a night out.

"_Show me the cigarettes."_

Reluctantly, she did so, throwing her jacket on the chair behind her. There was no reaction from the Doctor. No intake of breath, no muttered words of surprise. He just stared at the bruise.

Martha tried to shrug it off. "It's nothing, it doesn't even hurt that much anymore."

At first, it looked as though he was physically unable to speak, his mouth hanging open. "He hit you," he managed.

"…yeah, he did." She looked down at it. It had gone a sickeningly dark shade of purple.

"He… hit you." He looked like he might explode. Or start laughing, Martha always had trouble telling with the Doctor.

"It's okay, I'm here now and I'm all right. We can sort this out in a few seconds with one of your gadgets, right?"

His intense gaze didn't falter from the bruise for a few seconds more before his head sprang up again, looking at her with a bright, wide smile.

"Yes! Right! Dermal regenerator! I think I left it in the wardrobe room somewhere." He looked down at her jacket on the chair and frowned. "Speaking of which, you might want to change. What is going on there?"

Slipping on his glasses, the Doctor crouched beside the jacket, inspecting it without touching it.

"What?" Martha asked, kneeling beside him.

"Did your jacket always look so worn out?" he asked her, as though struggling to remember himself.

"What are you on about? That's a brand new-"

With an 'oh really?' look, he showed her the sleeve of the jacket, fraying and cracked.

"But… that doesn't make any sense. He…" Something dawned on her. "That's where he was holding me."

"What?" he asked, letting the sleeve drop but still keeping his attention on it. The way he studied it, it was like he was expecting it to sprout legs and run away. He rubbed the fingers he used to pick up the jacket together contemplatively.

Martha continued, unimpeded by his strange behaviour. "When we stepped out of his TARDIS and met you. He was holding me by the arm on that exact spot."

The Doctor nodded, and his gaze settled on where her hand was resting on the chair. "Martha… move your hand."

She looked down at the offending limb and lifted it from the chair. Where her hand had been, the leather of the chair was cracking and pale. Not as severely as the jacket, but it was still noticeable.

With only a curious 'hm', the Doctor went to pull out his sonic screwdriver from his jacket. He realised it was missing and groaned, rolling his eyes.

He reached over to the control panel, and put his hand just beneath the rim. He looked up to the ceiling and pulled a face as he felt around for whatever he was looking for. With a quiet 'ah!', he smiled, and brought a sonic screwdriver out from underneath.

"Never know when you'll need a replacement," he grinned, switching it on with this thumb so he looked like someone from those old British Gas adverts. He scanned the chair with it, slowly moving over to the jacket and her. He stood up, and his scan continued on to the control panel. Martha watched him work silently. The Doctor ended with a quick scan of the air around them.

With a flick of his thumb he switched it off, turning to Martha and leaning against the control panel, folding one ankle in front of the other.

"You're covered in antiprotons," he said, gesturing to her with a swirl of his hand.

"Antiprotons?" she said, getting to her feet and looking around in some attempt to see them. They didn't sound like something you could swat away. For some reason, she was reminded of the way those little flies surrounded her in the countryside.

The Doctor nodded. "Yes. Well, not just antiprotons, but antielectrons, anti…everything. It's mostly concentrated where the other Doctor touched you, but you've got an ambient field of anti-stuff all around you. It's probably why that," he paused to swallow, as though his throat had suddenly gone dry, "bruise isn't healing as quickly as it should."

She stared at him. Half of her was just beginning to register just how much the bruise was bothering him, but the other half just wanted to know what the hell he was going on about. "I'm really not following you, sorry."

He gave her a quick 'stupid human' look before launching into his explanation. "Right, okay. You know the basic structure of an atom. Protons are positive, electrons are negative and neutrons are neutral." Martha nodded along with that. "Now, what if… what _if _there was an alternate universe where all that was opposite?" he asked, although now he seemed to asking himself rather than Martha, not even looking at her. He was walking around the room, tapping the blue tip of the screwdriver against his chin.

"So the protons become negative and the electrons become positive?"

"Yes! No!" he yelled, pointing the sonic screwdriver at her happily. "Well, sort of." He wandered around the control panel, in one of his epiphany moments that Martha knew better than to interfere with. The Doctor had mojo that, once rolling, should never be interrupted. His fingers ran through his hair, leaving it a random mess as he spoke.

"So… if there was a universe where atoms… the building blocks of _everything _were opposite… then everything else would be opposite. Oh! Yes, _yes!_ He said that he had to get used to having conversations that went somewhere!" He whirled on his heel to face her. "You see, he's used to conversations that move backwards, because time in his universe _moves _backwards!"

"…like he's on permanent rewind?"

"Exactly!" Something occurred to him, and his mouth made a big 'O' shape. "That must be why Omega went absolutely bonkers… being sent to a universe like that couldn't be good for the old sanity," he said, talking so quietly he was, at this point, pretty much having a conversation with himself.

"Sorry, Omega?"

"Hm? Oh, legendary Time Lord. Went nuts because he was sent to an anti-matter universe," he said dismissively with a wave of his hand. Obviously not something he wanted to talk about. Which pretty much accounted for anything Time Lord related.

"You see," he said, walking around the control panel to her, "everything in this universe builds and grows. Cells divide, organisms reproduce, and the universe is always expanding." His eyes got that wild, excited look that Martha so loved about the Doctor. "So in an opposite universe, everything shrinks, drains away… rots…"

"Just like everything that Doctor touches," she said excitedly, glad to be part of his epiphany process for once.

"Yes! Well, no! I mean… everything in _this _universe rots at his touch because he's opposite. His very presence is toxic to the entire universe." His manic smile froze. "And not just this universe…" he said quietly, his eyes gazing into the distance. "He said that the last reality he was in died… he must have slowly killed it."

"He said he was gathering energy," Sloan added from across the room, wandering to the control panel.

"Oh. Listening, were you? By they way, Martha Jones, Mr Sloan, Mr Sloan-"

"Lieutenant Alonzo Sloan."

The Doctor's grin was blindingly wide as he threw his arms out in celebration.

"Alonzo! Finally! Martha, once I've fixed the TARDIS, remind me to say 'allons-y, Alonzo' before we set off!" He looked from Martha to Sloan, his grin frozen. They both looked at him cluelessly, the TARDIS control room filled with the awkward silence.

His arm flopped down to his sides and he cleared his throat, slipping away his sonic screwdriver. He was suddenly finding something very interesting on the control panel.

"Lieutenant Alonzo Sloan, Martha Jones," he mumbled, scratching under his ear.

They barely had a chance to nod to each other before the Doctor was off again.

"And that's right, Alonzo! He _did_ say he was gathering energy. But for what? Surely the energy here is toxic to him as well. Unless… No, no! He's from an opposite universe, but that just means that his anti-energy is toxic to our pro-energy. He and anything else from his universe would soak up positive energy like a sponge… it would slow down the decay, at least temporarily. It's in his very nature to eventually drain away to nothing – well, drain away backwards, well, forwards, well, backwards…" he frowned and shook his head. "So he can't make it permanent."

"So our universe… all the death he's caused… is just a quick fix for him?" Sloan asked.

The Doctor nodded solemnly. "I'm afraid so. And not just your universe. Who knows how many parallel realities he's destroyed trying to keep himself alive." He looked at Sloan directly. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologise. I just want him dead."

The Doctor shook his head. "I can't promise that."

"Fine. Then I'll do it."

"You can't," Martha said, her voice calmer than she felt. "He'll just change his face again."

"Yes," the Doctor added, nodding contemplatively. "Degeneration…"

She studied him for a moment. "So is that… not what happens to you when you…"

The Doctor remained focused on the control panel in front of him as he spoke. "No. I _re_generate. He's moving backwards through my regenerations. I've already had that face."

"You used to look like _that?"_

He looked at her with a 'what's that supposed to mean?' face, but then just nodded. "Before I met you, obviously."

"How long before?"

He puffed out his cheeks and blew as he thought it over. "Oh, half a year… a year… give or take, can't really remember," he said dismissively, is eyes still on the control panel.

"You can't remember?"

"No, sorry. And by the way, exactly _what _is wrong with that face?" he said defensively, a hand on his hip as he leant against the panel with the other. "I was quite the charmer as that Doctor. Nowhere _near_ as rude as I am now."

"Nothing's _wrong _with it, you just look bet-" her eyes widened and she quickly averted her gaze.

He grinned. "What was that? 

"Nothing."

"Nothing, of course. You weren't about to say I look better _now_, were you?"

"No, don't be stupid. I'm going to get changed."

"Of course you are," he said, his voice an increasingly stupid sound to it.

She snatched up her jacket and moved to the stairs. She stopped on the first step, her embarrassment forgotten.

"Is there a way I can get rid of these... antiprotons?"

"It's not just antiprotons, it's antielectrons-"

"Antimatter," Sloan added, trying to be helpful to Martha by clarifying.

"No, that's Star Trek," the Doctor quickly dismissed. "If I'm going to come up with a name for something, I don't want to worry about copyright infringement."

Sloan looked to Martha cluelessly, who just shrugged and rolled her eyes in a 'don't ask' way.

"And no, you can't, Martha. But you're in a positive environment now, so they should eventually fade naturally."

She tried to hide her blatant relief. "Okay, good. I'll be back in a bit." She smiled first at the Doctor and spared a quick, wary glance at Sloan before heading on down the stairs.

The Doctor gave Sloan an enigmatic smile before strolling around the control panel to the monitor. He started pressing some controls here and there around the panel, then checking back to the monitor every now and then.

"So what's the plan?" Sloan asked, leaning forward against the control panel in a manner that reminded the Doctor of his ninth incarnation. The incarnation that was now out to kill them.

"A few things," he replied, trying to clear his head of such thoughts. "I've got to repair the TARDIS, find out what the other Doctor's…" A sigh escaped his lips. "You know, that name's really not working. 'The other Doctor'. Just doesn't work, does it? I need something that sums him up but doesn't get him confused with me. Let's see, what have we got? He's from an opposite universe… antiprotons, antielectrons-"

"Antineutrons?"

"No, neutrons are neutral," he said dismissively. "Ah!" He yelled suddenly. "'The Anti-Doctor'! Oh, I like that. The Anti-Doctor. Because he's opposite. Anti. Pretty good, eh?"

Sloan opened his mouth to speak but the Doctor just kept on going.

"Anyway, I've got to repair the TARDIS, find out what the Anti-Doctor's," he stopped himself to grin, "doing, _and _think of a way to stop him preferably without killing him."

The young soldier didn't seem too happy with the 'no killing' thing, but he just nodded.

"And how long will that take?"

"One thing at a time? Oof, hours. But luckily," he said, pressing some buttons on the monitor before smiling at Sloan, "I'm brilliant. So! I'll multi task, with a little help from you if you're willing."

He looked a little taken aback, straightening up from the control panel as he spoke. "Um… okay. I don't know much about… time travelling… stuff, though."

"That's all right! You've got a very simple job. Take this." He reached into his jacket and tossed Sloan the sonic screwdriver. Not expecting the sudden throw, Sloan juggled the tool before finally getting a good grip on it.

"Setting forty three to scan for anti… stuff, and then setting twenty four to repair whatever it's rotted. Okay?"

Sloan glanced from the silver implement to the Doctor a few times. "Uh… yeah. Sure."

When the Doctor didn't say much more to him, the young soldier took that as his cue. He got to work, his scanning first leading him to the chair where Martha's hand had lay, then to the control panel where the Doctor was working, leading to some awkward 'excuse me's from Sloan and some annoyed looks from the Doctor.

About half an hour later, Sloan was almost finished in the TARDIS control room.

"So… how's everything going?" he asked, walking slowly around the room as he scanned.

The Doctor took a deep breath. "Well, let's see. We're on a moon in the Eros system in the sixty seventh century."

Sloan tried not to fall over. "The… sixty seventh century…"

"Yeah." He looked at Sloan's bewildered expression. "Oh, don't panic. We're in a perfectly functioning time machine," he said, patting the control panel. "Once this is all sorted we'll have you back to Drentax Five before tea."

"…oh. Okay. And, uh… what's the Anti-Doctor doing?"

The Doctor grinned when Sloan said 'Anti-Doctor'.

"Well, he's on Mars in the Sol system. But he's not doing anything. Not absorbing energy, nothing."

"So what do you think he's doing?"

"Probably what we're doing. Repairing and planning. And he's got my positive sonic screwdriver, so his repairs will probably go a lot more smoothly. At least, until the negative energy of his TARDIS degrades it to nothing."

"What about those… Cybermen things? Did he build them?"

"No. They're probably from one of the realities he's visited and destroyed. Same with that Dalek weapon he was using."

"You mean the thing he used to kill Robertson."

The Doctor didn't reply, instead focusing on his work.

"What was his base for? If he was absorbing energy from all around the universe, why set up camp around Drentax Five?"

"The Drentax system is close to a lot of sources of energy. Suns, nebulas, space ports, factories… all within a stone's throw of Drentax. Well, relatively speaking. That's what makes it such a nice place to stay. Well, in my reality."

"…what's it like in your reality? Drentax Five."

_That _got the Doctor away from his work. He smiled as he looked at Sloan. "_Fantastic _planet. Always sunny, always colourful, everybody always smiling… _superb _food. The lobsters… oof, like no other."

Sloan nodded, not really taking it in. He found it difficult to grasp the idea that there were other Drentax Five's around. And other Sloan's…

With a shake of his head, he turned off the sonic screwdriver. "Okay, I'm done."

The Doctor shook his head. "Not yet. There could be some more in the lower levels of the TARDIS."

"Lower… levels?"

"Yes. Off you go then," he said quickly, nodding to the stairs.

"But… how big is this place?"

"Pretty big." He double-glanced at Sloan, who was looking increasingly worried. "Just get Martha to help you. She'll either be in the kitchen or the wardrobe room."

"And where are they?"

The Doctor opened his mouth, then closed it again. He kept on forgetting that new people didn't automatically know their way around the TARDIS. Except Jack, which had always worried the Doctor slightly. His first night in the TARDIS, the good Captain had found both the kitchen and the wardrobe with nary a whisper of a question uttered. The Doctor again noticed Sloan's clueless face.

"Oh. Right." He tilted his head up. "MARTHA!"

There was a pause for a few seconds. "WHAT?"

"WHERE ARE YOU?"

"THE KITCHEN!"

"COULD YOU HELP SLOAN FIND THE KITCHEN?"

"WHAT?"

"THE KITCHEN!"

"WHAT ABOUT IT?"

"COULD YOU- oh, never mind," he muttered. "Down the stairs, second left, first right, straight on, up the stairs, on your right, then left again until you reach the big green thing. Shout for Martha once you're down there."

"I… okay."

He went to the stairs, and stopped on the top step much like Martha had done earlier, turning to the Doctor.

"When do you think we'll be going after him? The Anti-Doctor, I mean."

The Doctor shrugged. "Hard to say. Half an hour to an hour."

"Couldn't we just use a transmat to get there?"

"Maybe… but that _is _rather a big leap for a transmat. You'd need a very strong signal on both ends, and his Anti-TARDIS – ooo, Anti-TARDIS - just doesn't have that. No, I'll repair this TARDIS and then we'll be done. Just… go about your… stuff," he said, loosely gesturing with his hand.

Sloan opened his mouth to say something more, but then seemed to opt for silence and descended into the TARDIS.

The Doctor waited a few seconds to confirm that Sloan would actually shout.

"Um… MARTHA?"

He grinned and giggled to himself as he got back to work. That boy could use some fun after all that had happened to him today. It occurred to the Time Lord that fun at _his expense _might not be the right _kind _of fun, but he quickly dismissed it.

When he heard Martha's _very _annoyed response, he laughed even more. Because the Doctor had neglected to tell Sloan that the kitchen was in fact just next to the stairs.

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(A/N: I return! Updates should be more regular now, which, depending on whether you like this story or not, could be good news or bad news.

Anyway, reviews, good or bad, are always welcome!)


	7. Conversations

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

(A/N: As always, many thanks for the superb beta work of Hhgbh.)

_**The Other Doctor**_

_**Chapter Six: Conversations**_

The sonic screwdriver whined compliantly as it worked over the post in the Cloister Room that the Anti-Doctor had touched. It had taken Sloan forty minutes or so (with Martha's help) to navigate through the TARDIS' interior and disinfect all the things around the ship the Anti-Doctor had seen fit to examine. Martha had been surprised at how much the doppelganger had got around while he was out of her sight.

"Did he touch anything else?" Sloan asked, concentrating on his task.

Martha shrugged from where she stood a few metres away, studying the Cloister Room with awe. It still amazed her what the Doctor hid away from everyone around him. But then again, maybe it was just her. He could have shared everything with Rose, for all she knew. That girl _did_ make the world go round, after all. "Could've done; I was in the shower for about twenty minutes."

This made him stop as he looked at her with a frown. "Twenty _minutes? _What were you doing?"

She frowned. "What? That ash snow is hard to get out of your hair."

"Yes, but, twenty minutes…"

Martha smiled. "Don't know many women, do you?"

"Not really," he said matter-of-factly, returning to his work. "There are only about three healthy women on the entire planet."

"And… how many men?" she asked quietly, her smile disappearing.

His face was grim as he thought about it. It wasn't something he enjoyed talking about. "Fifteen or so, I think. Although that's… ten, now." He paused for a moment. "The rest are all dying."

"Because of the other Doctor draining their energy."

Sloan nodded. "Although we didn't know it was _exactly _because of that. We just knew that he was responsible."

Silence fell between them, the sonic screwdriver still whirring away, innocent of the awkward conversation that was going on around it. Martha sat on the ground, resting her arms on her knees as she looked at Sloan intently. "How long as he been here? I mean, that other Doctor."

"Decades. Although," he said, looking over to her with a small smile that was bordering on wry, "I think we're calling him the 'Anti-Doctor' now."

Her smile reappeared. "_He_ came up with that, did he?" she said, nodding upwards.

"Yeah."

She shook her head, the smile remaining. "I bet he was really pleased with himself, too."

He didn't reply, at least at first. Then, after a few more seconds, Sloan flicked off the screwdriver and turned to look at her. "I take it you've been travelling with him for awhile."

"A few months now, I think. It's hard to keep track of time here. No calendars," she said, laughing nervously and shrugging.

He returned her smile, although his seemed more distant. Martha had seen that kind of look before. The Doctor got it whenever the topic of Gallifrey or other Time Lords came up. It was the look of someone being haunted by their past. By death, more specifically.

"What's he like?" Sloan asked, sitting down and resting back against the post. He stopped looking at her and closed his eyes, as though relieving himself of some great burden.

Martha frowned lightly, although she was still smiling. Feeling uncomfortable leaning forward, she sat cross legged. "How'd you mean?"

He shrugged. "Well, I don't know much about him. The Doctor _I _know, I mean."

"The Anti-Doctor."

"The Anti-Doctor, right."

They shared a smile at their host's expense.

"Well," she began, leaning back and planting her arms behind her, "He's still quite a mystery to me. He's had a lot of trouble in the past, I know that." Her gaze travelled upwards to look at the ceiling. "Seems to follow him everywhere."

"His past?"

"Trouble."

He nodded. "Are you two…?" he asked expectantly, silently hoping she didn't need more clarification. He was rather reserved about talk of relationships and such. Sloan didn't really do 'domestic'.

The look she gave him was almost akin to panic. "What? No," she laughed, although it faded quickly. She avoided Sloan's gaze.

Ah. Sore spot. Time to change the subject.

"He seems pretty happy most of the time," Sloan said, stretching.

Martha nodded, also seeming glad to get off the subject. "Yeah, he is. But sometimes… I don't know. It's like a mask he puts on. Because he can switch from hilariously weird to scarily intense and serious like _that," _she said, snapping her fingers.

Again, Sloan nodded. "Like the Anti-Doctor. One minute he can be smiling and joking, the next he's broken your neck."

"Too right," she agreed, rubbing her arm absently. "That's one thing I'll say about the Doctor."

"What? He doesn't snap necks?"

She shot him a look, and shook her head. "He doesn't use violence. Ever. I've never seen him hit anyone, shoot anyone, nothing."

He nodded. "Admirable," he said, although there wasn't much feeling behind it. If he was being honest with himself, he was only saying it because it seemed like the right thing _to _say. His real opinion would only be met with opposition, if Sloan had read Martha right. Of course, he wasn't very good at reading people in the first place, so for all he knew, Martha might agree with his sentiments.

"Yeah," Martha continued, oblivious to his inward conflict. "And what's more amazing is that he always comes out on top. Because you know, they always say 'brains over brawn', but that never really works in the real world. It's weird to see someone who's _so _smart that he never has to resort to violence."

"So he's never killed anyone."

It wasn't a question.

"No. He's been… too late to save people before, but I can't remember him actually killing anyone."

"Anyone who didn't deserve it, you mean."

"No, I mean _anyone_. He's never killed another living thing."

Sloan muttered something under his breath as he heaved himself to his feet and returned to the post. He didn't really want to pursue the matter any further. Unfortunately, his grumpy mutterings had not gone unnoticed.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Don't give me that. What?"

He sighed and switched off the screwdriver again. "I said 'if you say so'."

"And… what's that supposed to mean?" she asked, trying not to sound accusatory.

As he spoke, his back remained to her. "It means I've seen people who have killed before. I've seen the look in their eyes. The way they respond to death when confronted with it. The Doctor…" he sighed, trying to think of a way to put it. "When he saw my friend killed by the Anti-Doctor, he… look, it wasn't like he didn't care. But it didn't bother him on the instinctive level it does other people. His mind was bothered by it, but not his heart. If you know what I mean."

Martha didn't reply.

Sloan sighed and turned to her. "I'm not saying he's an emotionless monster. He doesn't _enjoy _seeing people die. But he's learnt how to deal with it. To bury it and… ignore it, in a way. He's got the look of somebody who has seen so much, that… that if he _did _let it in, it would destroy him."

His gaze lingered on her as he turned back to the post, continuing his work until the sonic screwdriver switched itself off, indicating its' repairs were complete.

"There. Done."

Martha nodded, looking blankly ahead. "Right. We should… get upstairs then," she said quietly, getting to her feet and dusting herself off. This room was surprisingly mucky for being inside a spaceship.

"Give this to him, would you?" he said, tossing her the screwdriver. She caught it rather awkwardly, and Sloan gave her an apologetic smile.

"Could you show me where the wardrobe is on the way up? I'd like to change into something lighter."

She looked down to the heavy military gear that was strapped on to him in so many different ways Martha wouldn't have known where to start to get him out of it.

"Um… yeah. No problem," she said, giving him a little smile before leading him out.

They walked down the corridor in silence, and Martha gestured to a door on their left as they approached the stairs.

"Through that door, and down the spiral staircase."

"Thanks."

He opened the door, but Martha made no room to move, preoccupied.

"You know," she began, and Sloan turned to her.

"…the way you just switched there. From deep emotional discussion to all business…" She turned to face him. "It reminds me of the Doctor."

Sloan shrugged. "I'm a soldier. Sometimes it's my job to kill people." His gaze bored into hers. "What's his excuse?"

He turned and lightly jogged down the stairs, letting the door click shut behind him. Somehow he didn't think that Martha would put much stock in what he said. But something about the Doctor and the company he kept encouraged honesty, even the brutal kind.

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Martha tried to think of an answer, not just for Sloan, but for herself. She had always noticed something that little bit darker in the Doctor than what he let on. But… killing? He always seemed so horrified by the prospect when he came across it on their travels. But then again… he always seemed willing to do whatever it took to protect the innocent and the good. Maybe it wasn't beyond him to take a life if it was for the right reasons. She went up the staircase to the TARDIS control room, staring at the sonic screwdriver as though it would yield some answers.

The Doctor was poking around just beneath the central column, his head and arms completely enveloped in the control panel beneath. He paused in his work and poked his head out. "Ah! There you are! Sloan find all the places okay?" he asked, barely pausing for an answer before diving right back into his work.

Martha snapped herself out of it and smiled. She could worry about it later. At the moment she would just enjoy spending time with the Doctor. _Her _Doctor.

"Yeah, no problems." She used the sonic screwdriver as a counter, striking it against her fingers as she spoke. "There was some in the kitchen, some in the Cloister Room-"

"The Cloister Room?" he interrupted, quickly pulling his head out of the panel and bumping his head as he went. Hissing, he rubbed the back of his head as he talked to her. "Did you say Cloister Room?"

She froze, the screwdriver pointed up in the air. "…on… on one of the posts, yeah."

"Is that all?" he said, walking over to her.

"All what?"

"All that he touched in there? Martha, you have to remember very carefully." He put his hands on her arms gently. When he noticed he was grabbing her bad arm he quickly let go, as though burned.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly, his face strangely blank.

Martha shrugged it off. "It's all right. Dermal regenerator did the trick."

He nodded, smiling. It was an awkward kind of smile that she hadn't seen on the Doctor before. He didn't give her much time to linger on it, however, since it vanished a second later and he was back to business.

"What else did he touch in the Cloister Room?" His voice was less intense this time, though the urgency behind it was still there, lingering.

"Just the post. He didn't have time to do anything else because the TARDIS started shaking."

"Why?"

She frowned. "Why what?"

"Why was the TARDIS shaking?"

"He said it was because of some energy it was absorbing."

"What energy?"

"Solar energy from a flare or something."

The Doctor turned away from her, his hand plunged deep into his trouser pockets as he paced around the room. He rubbed a hand absently around his chin, feeling his stubble. Well, if Time Lords got stubble. It made Martha wonder what the Doctor would look like with facial hair.

"Solar energy wouldn't make the TARDIS shake, why would it shake…?"

"I figured it was because it was from another universe," she added.

This just seemed to trouble him more, and he vehemently shook his head. "No, solar energy is solar energy no matter what universe you're in. It would be a bit incompatible but nothing that should make the TARDIS shake… and besides, the TARDIS doesn't run on solar energy."

"What, then?"

Suddenly he froze. He turned to her, his eyes wide and panicky.

"Martha, _when _did the TARDIS shake?"

She was a bit taken aback by the sudden gear shift. "Um… a few times. Once or twice while I was in the shower, once in the Cloister Room, and then twice more after that."

"Were you _with_ him when any of these happened?"

Martha shook her head. "Just the Cloister Room."

The Doctor nodded frantically as he paced. "Okay, okay, so… he touched one of the posts around the Eye of Harmony, right?"

"Right."

"And _that's _when the TARDIS shook?"

"Yes."

That seemed like the end of it, the Doctor's face relaxing. But then he suddenly scowled in confusion once more, turning his back to her as he wandered around the control room in thought. "But I don't understand, the TARDIS wouldn't have let him in the Cloister Room… it would have detected his anti nature and denied him access…"

Martha's throat was suddenly very dry. "Um…"

He slowly turned to look at her, his face one of resignation.

"I _might _have let him in."

"Oh, of _course_ you did!" The Doctor threw his arms in the air and stormed around the console.

"I thought he was you!" she protested, following him around.

"If he was me he wouldn't have asked you to open it!"

"He made it sound like he was letting me!"

He scoffed loudly. "Oh, well in _that _case…!"

Annoyed, Martha followed him around. "Look, what's the problem? He only touched _one _post!"

"One touch is all it takes with the Eye of Harmony!" he warned, staring at her. "That thing is one of the most sensitive power sources in the known universe, and the slightest bit of interference…" he took a breath. "Well, it can be bad."

"How bad?"

"Bad. Very bad."

"How bad is 'very bad'?"

"Well, you know bad? This is like that, but very."

She gave him a sarcastic look, which she didn't get to do with the Doctor very often. The Doctor sighed.

"Oh, all right then, let's see…" He thought for a moment. "Okay," he said quickly with a snap of his fingers. "Where were you on New Year's Eve, 1999?"

The question was so out of left field, it made Martha blink. "What?"

He rolled his hand in a 'come on, quickly' gesture.

"Um… I was at Tish's, at a party."

"What, all day?"

She shrugged. "You only get to see one millennium."

He smiled. "You should have seen the celebrations for the year 3000. Bananas, Dick Clark's head... now _that _was what I call-" he shook his head. "ANYWAY! You were at a party. How drunk were you?"

"What kind of a question is that?" she said, trying to sound insulted instead of embarrassed.

"A valid one, thank you very much."

"Well… not very, if you must know. There was… someone there I fancied, so I was trying not to get too leathered." Martha didn't look at him, not wanting to see his smugness.

But smugness didn't even occur to him, apparently. "Ah! So, you would have noticed any strange goings on that day!"

"What?"

"Like… the laws of gravity not working properly, clocks moving in the wrong direction… glass becoming liquid? Anything?"

Martha thought about it.

"Well… there was a time I was leaning against a patio door and I almost fell through. I thought it was just because someone opened the door, but… I could have sworn blind that it felt like the glass was giving way."

The Doctor nodded, pleased. "That's because it was. Someone opened the Eye of Harmony that day, and the laws of physics and time went out the window. And that was after the Eye had been open for a few _minutes_."

"And where was this?"

Suddenly he broke out in a fond smile, his teeth just showing through his parted lips. "San Francisco. Lovely city. And cable cars! Shame I didn't get to ride on a cable car. I went on the one in Nottingham, but it's just not same. Something to do once this is over, eh?"

She smiled and shook her head, amazed. "You don't half get around, do you?"

He shrugged, pulling at his ear. "I try. Had a different face then, too. It was brand new to me that day."

Martha's smile faded slightly. "Was it… _his _face? The one the Anti-Doctor's-" she stopped when she saw his grin.

"What?"

"You said 'Anti-Doctor'. You used my terminology," his voice went all stupid as he spoke.

She sighed and shook her head. "Was it the face he's got now?"

He continued grinning for another few seconds before becoming serious Doctor again. "No, it was the one before him. Who knows? If he gets shot between now and then, maybe you'll see what I looked like. Very suave and debonair."

"Debonair? You?"

"Hey, I can be debonair," he protested, his voice going up a defensive octave. "You said I looked like James Bond."

"Once," she replied, holding up a digit.

"Once is enough." He shook his head out of this little argument. "Anyway, luckily I was able to take advantage of all the random chaos energy that was being thrown around and use it to sort of get… around… some time causality laws. Fixed the whole mess right up _and _undid some deaths, something I _don't _usually get to do." He sighed. "Didn't half get an earful about it afterwards," he said, gazing off fondly. "So!" he shouted. "You can see why I would be concerned."

"Yes, right. But seriously, he only touched the post."

"That you saw," he persisted. "You said the TARDIS shook _before_ that?"

She nodded. "And after."

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Did you close the Cloister Room door behind you when you left?"

"You sound like my mum."

"Oof, no need for that," he admonished, frowning.

A grin sprung onto her face. "But I did."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Are you _really sure?"_

"Yes!

He walked around the console to her. "But are you _really really really-"_

"Just stop, all right?" She laughed. "I closed the door behind me. Why? What's the TARDIS shaking got to do with anything?"

His playful demeanour once again gave way. "Because the TARDIS only shakes when there's something seriously wrong. Something like, say," he blew out a puff of air, that familiar air of flippancy returning, "to pull a _completely random_ example out of thin air – don't know where I'm getting this from, mind - a Time Lord from a dimension that is fundamentally wrong touching its' inner workings."

Martha frowned. "But… aside from the Eye of Harmony, what else is vital enough to the TARDIS to make it shake?"

His eyes were cast skyward as he mulled it over. "Well, there's a way to see the heart of the TARDIS from here," he said, nodding to the console, "but it's just that, a way to see it, a window. He must have been trying to get _into _the Cloister Room, but couldn't… and when he tried to force it, the TARDIS objected." As if by way of sympathy, the Doctor patted the control panel.

"There was some anti-stuff on the door, but I just thought it was from him holding it open for me."

"Oh, evil despot _and_ a gentlemen, that's nice. Well, that explains it, then. It was him trying to get back into the Cloister Room."

Satisfied, he snatched his screwdriver from her and got back to work on something on the control panel.

Curiously, Martha pulled out the Anti-Doctor's sonic screwdriver from her jacket pocket.

"So… would this be an Anti-sonic screwdriver, then?"

The Doctor looked at her and smiled. "That's right. Why?"

She smiled. "Just wanted to make sure I was using the right terminology." She slipped it back into her jacket pocket.

"I'd be careful with that, if I were you," he said, moving over to the hole in the control panel that he had been enveloped in before. "That could wear a hole in your jacket before long."

"It's okay," she shrugged, watching the Doctor as he slipped into the open panel. "I wore a jacket I didn't like on purpose."

"Oh, you are a sly one, Ms Jones," he replied, his entire body above his armpits inside the control panel. She tried to ignore his bum wagging from side to side absently as he worked.

"So I take it the Anti-Doctor," she paused as she realised the Doctor was probably smiling at her usage of the word, "would like to get his hands on the Eye of… uh-"

"-Harmony-"

"-Harmony, right."

"Oh, very much." His voice had a slight reverberation as he spoke. "The amount of positive energy he could soak up from that would probably keep him alive for untold years… maybe even centuries. But the damage to this universe and all the realities around it doesn't bear thinking about."

She nodded and looked at the monitor, somehow thinking that this time she would understand what it said.

"How long until we're ready to go then?"

"A few..." He grunted as he pulled himself out of the panel. "Oof, hang on…"

"Do you need a hand?"

"Nope, just caught on something."

"Do… need me to pull you out or anything?"

"Nope, it's okay. I've got it…" His upper body slowly moved out of the hole in the control panel like a snake. He straightened up with the same caution, blowing out a breath with his eyes wide like it was some great physical feat.

He looked over at Martha. "A few minutes."

"Really? That didn't take long."

"Well, I _am _fantastic," he said, wandering over to the other side of the console.

"Oh, right. Forgot." She couldn't see him past the central column, but she was sure he was grinning. "But… have you got a plan? For how to stop him?"

"Stop... who?" he said expectantly, poking his head around the column to look at her.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to say it."

"Oh, go on. Make me smile."

He was smiling anyway.

"The Anti-Doctor."

His grin was infectious. He got back to work, not answering the question as he lay on his back and did something beneath the control panel.

Thinking he might have forgotten, Martha walked halfway around the console to look at him. "So? _Do _you have a plan?"

His eyes were firmly locked on whatever his sonic screwdriver was doing to the wad of cables he held in his hand. "…sort of."

"What does that mean? 'Sort of'?"

A frustrated sigh escaped his lips as heaved himself out from underneath and looked her in the eyes. "It means the only way I can think to stop him… is to kill him."

"Oh. Couldn't you just send him back home?"

The Doctor shook his head. "He'd just find his way out again. And besides, the amount of positive energy he's soaked up… I'm not sure if he'd be able to go back. And there's nothing that could contain him, his very presence would rot any kind of prison to nothing." He walked back to the monitor.

Martha followed. "So… what is the plan, if he's got all those degenerations or whatever?"

His gaze didn't falter from the monitor as he tweaked some controls back and forth.

"I'm going to bombard him with anti-matter. Accelerate the process until he just… fades away."

Silence followed as Martha tried to think of something to say. "Sloan probably wouldn't argue with that."

"I know," the Doctor said quietly, looking pained. "And that's why I'm trying to think of another way. But at the rate he's destroying everything… I may not have any choice."

Silence hung in the air like a bad odour. The only noise was the steady hum of the TARDIS, although where the hum came from, Martha had no idea.

The Doctor stopped in his work, frowning.

"And do you hear something humming?" he asked, sounding incredibly annoyed.

She frowned, starting to feel that old sinking feeling. "I thought it was the TARDIS."

He shook his head, and with a dangerous look in his eyes, pulled out his sonic screwdriver. He scanned the air around them.

"It's too big for a transmat," he whispered to the screwdriver, "what is it?"

The humming grew louder, gradually giving way to a familiar noise; that of the TARDIS 'engine'.

Both backed away from the console cautiously, staring up at the central column. The Doctor put a protective arm in front of her as they moved back.

She didn't mind, under the circumstances.

Half the room seemed to change before their eyes, growing darker.

"What's going on?" Martha said, getting that sinking feeling she always got when bad things were on the horizon.

"He's fixed it…" the Doctor breathed, looking around in a panic, going to the control panel in some vain attempt to do something.

"He's fixed what? Doctor, what's he doing?"

"His Anti-TARDIS! He's fixed it! He's fixed it and he's materialising it on our TARDIS!"

"Can he do that?" she asked desperately.

Five Cybermen faded into view around them, spread around the control room evenly, half in the light, half in shadow. The Doctor made a move for the console, but one of the Cybermen forced the Doctor back and away. The control room was perfectly divided in half now. Half looked like the TARDIS that Martha knew. The other half looked dilapidated, dying. The Anti-TARDIS.

A voice sounded from nowhere, echoing around the room.

"Of course I can."

The Anti-Doctor stepped around the console, clad in a black leather jacket and green sweater, smiling in a way that seemed so very similar to the Doctor she knew, and yet totally different.

"See? Here I am, materialising." He gave them a quick wave. "Hello!"

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(A/N: Rather talky this one (hence the chapter title), but there will be some more action'n'stuff in the coming chapters.

Anyway, all the reviews so far are very much appreciated. That said… gimme more.)


	8. Survival

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

(A/N: Many thanks to Hhgbh!)

_**The Other Doctor**_

_**Chapter Seven: Survival**_

Sloan considered himself in the mirror. He was wearing some jeans and a t-shirt with his army boots. Not exactly imaginative, but he thought it worked. As soon as he thought it, he realised how strange it was that he was thinking in such a way. He had never really been one to care about his appearance. But at the very least he should look neat.

This room really made no sense. Who puts an endless chasm next to a wardrobe room and thinks it's a good idea? Who thinks it's a good idea to put a spiral staircase near an endless chasm? Crazy people, that's who. And, obviously, the Doctor.

He was distracted from his thoughts by a low hum that seemed to be getting louder. Half the room darkened, the clothes from that side of the room changing shape, rotting. It felt like so many dreams that he had had as a child, being told of the Doctor and the horrible things he could do, the horrible things he _did_.

But, unlike in his dreams, the darkness wasn't spreading over him. It seemed to be exactly half of the room, divided by an imaginary line down the middle of the wardrobe room.

The humming stopped, and Sloan looked up and around the room.

"Martha? Doctor?"

Getting an unsteady feeling in his stomach, he ran to the stairs, pulling out his sidearm as he did so. The door was locked. He took a run up and tried slamming into it a few times before shooting the door handle and then kicking the door in.

Nothing. The door just wouldn't give. After the final kick almost made him lose his balance and fall down the stairs, he gave up on that particular method of escape. Upon closer inspection, he noticed the bullet hadn't even penetrated the lock. There was the faint hint of a scratch on the door handle, and nothing more.

His lips thinning into a line, he holstered his gun and started exploring. Something was obviously going on, and he hoped it wasn't what his soldier's instinct was telling him it was.

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Martha wondered if she would ever get used to being held captive by murderous aliens. If that shaking fear would dissipate after a while and she would start to stand tall like the Doctor. But then again, _he _had nine hundred odd years experience to draw upon. She only _just_ had two decades worth.

The Anti-Doctor was stalking around the console like a cat, pressing random controls as he stared at the Doctor, as though taunting him just with his face. A face her Doctor had once had. It was something that Martha couldn't imagine. The Doctor was the Doctor, and he didn't have other faces.

She looked over at the Doctor, and saw that same look on his face that he always had in these circumstances. A little bit of courage, a little bit of certainty, a little bit of worry… but that was only because she had known him for so long. It made her wonder if those new to the Doctor could see the rainbow of emotions flashing behind his eyes in these situations.

"Anyone else on board?" the Anti-Doctor asked, leaning against the console with his arms crossed, his hand tucked into his armpits with his thumbs hooking upwards.

"Do we ever travel with more than one?" the Doctor replied, using the exact same tone of voice.

The Anti-Doctor smiled and looked down. His gaze travelled back up to look first at the Doctor, and then to her.

"Cyber Leader," he announced, his eyes on them.

One of the Cybermen came forward. This one had black 'handles' on its' head, which, Martha assumed, signified its' rank. If robots _had _rank, Martha wasn't really sure.

"Send a Cyberman to find anyone else," he said, smiling. "Tell them to kill on sight."

"_Affirmative."_

Without turning to address the chosen soldier, the Cyber Leader spoke.

"_Cyber Unit Four. Seek and delete all life forms within the complex."_

"_Affirmative."_

It was the one stood directly on their right, making Martha jump when it suddenly leapt to life and marched down the stairs.

"He won't find anything," the Doctor said plainly, a touch of defiance in his voice.

"Because you've locked the doors, you mean? Don't worry, I'll sort that." He turned to the console and pushed a few controls before returning his attention to his two captives.

"There. Done."

He smiled, and the Doctor's arm seemed to stiffen underneath Martha's grip.

"You don't like seeing this, do you?" The Anti-Doctor stroked his chin as though admiring his profile in some imaginary mirror. "A glimpse into your future. When you finally do change, I doubt you'll be able to look in the mirror the same way again, will you?"

"Actually," the Doctor replied, relaxing and brushing off Martha's concerned hand as though straightening out a wrinkle on his suit, "I've already seen that face."

The Anti-Doctor's expression didn't change. "Have you now?"

The Doctor straightened up, his hands in his pockets. "That's right. You see, I don't degenerate. I _re_generate. I've already _had _that face. And do you know what else that means?"

His voice had gone lower, barely above a whisper.

Still appearing thoroughly amused, the Anti-Doctor pushed himself up off the console, his arms continually crossed, and leaned forward.

"Oh, please tell me."

The Doctor's voice went down to that low rasp, halfway between a murmur and a whisper. "It means that once I've beaten you _this _time, it won't matter where you go, or how many times you degenerate. Because I'll always be able to find you."

The two remained locked in their staring match, neither willing to give the other a single millimetre. Both looking into their previous faces, and finding something they detested that wasn't there before.

"You know what? I honestly think that old age has made you senile," the Anti-Doctor gloated, leaning back against the console.

"That's rich, coming from the man with the rotting brain." The Doctor's voice was deathly quiet as he spoke. It gave Martha chills when the Doctor spoke like this, and not in an exciting, dangerous way. It showed her just how frightening the Doctor could be; the way he could instantly nail down someone's insecurities and faults and bring them out for all to see. How he could see your weaknesses. She sometimes wondered if he had figured her out already.

The Doctor continued. "Rotting brain, rotting body, rotting TARDIS… makes you wonder what the point of it is, doesn't it? Always struggling to survive, for that last fleeting breath of life. And then, before you know it, the struggle starts all over again. Until eventually, you've destroyed _everything_ and spent your entire existence trying to stay alive instead of actually _living._"

Martha had no idea what the Anti-Doctor was going to do. At that moment he could have burst into tears, punched the Doctor, or stormed off, and Martha wouldn't have been the least surprised.

Well, maybe she would have been surprised at the 'bursting into the tears' one.

As it was, he chose a quick bark of laughter, throwing his head up into the air before bringing his eye line back down to intercept the Doctor's. His smile was frozen, cruel, his eyes full of hate.

"And you're telling me that you're not the same? Every single person, positive, negative, it doesn't matter. They all exist to survive. To continue."

"No," the Doctor said simply.

The Anti-Doctor tilted his head to the side, amused. "No?"

"No. If it was someone in this universe, I'd be amazed, no, impressed, no, _dazzled_ at what they'd accomplished. Because it was in their _nature._"

"And this isn't in mine?"

The sudden rise in volume from the Doctor made Martha recoil slightly.

"Oh come off it, you _know _it's not! In your universe things begin at the end. Like you said, conversations don't go somewhere, they backtrack. Effect, then cause. Baby, then pregnancy. Bruise," he hissed, "then punch."

The Anti-Doctor didn't seem to get the reference, but Martha did. Was the Doctor really that angry about it? She felt flattered and worried at the same time. The former for the attention, the latter for just what the Doctor was willing to do as payback.

The Anti-Doctor uncrossed his arms and wandered to the monitor, leaning forward against the control panel with both arms spread wide in front of him.

"Makes you wonder how I got out, doesn't it?" he said not looking at them.

The Doctor jutted out his bottom lip and nodded his head from side to side. "A little," he shrugged, "but I'm not the inquisitive type."

A tight smile was the Anti-Doctor's first response. Then his gaze travelled to the Doctor, boring into him. "There was some temporal cataclysm. A huge explosion of temporal energy. Out of nowhere, the stars burned."

Martha frowned as she saw the Doctor stiffen. That sounded familiar, somehow. Something the Doctor had said to her, during one of their first trips together.

"Some of that energy struck me, and suddenly… everything changed. My thoughts went forwards _and _backwards. I_ set_ courses, _made_ plans… I felt _alive._ And I wanted to keep on feeling that way. So I followed the energy, which was disappearing as quickly as it came. It weakened the barriers between realities. It even allowed me to break through the Void and come out the other side."

She was lost, but the Doctor obviously wasn't. He hadn't breathed since the Anti-Doctor had started speaking.

"And then I started adapting. You see, _Doctor,"_ he said, pronouncing 'Doctor' as precisely and viciously as he could. It sounded like an insult coming from him. "This isn't just about a few days of survival at a time. This is about eventually becoming a part of these positive universes. Because in all of my travels, I haven't found _one _other negative universe. Not one. Which leads me to believe-"

"That there's only one."

"Exactly." His eyes thinned as he wandered over to the Doctor. He smiled. "You know what it was, don't you? You know what that temporal explosion was."

Like an animal stalking its' prey, he slowly moved around the Doctor, moving in-between Martha and the Doctor as he walked around him.

"You know what it was… you were there, you saw it…" Something occurred to him. "Oh… or you _caused it…"_ He smiled at the Doctor, as though he had given some sign. As far as Martha could tell, he hadn't moved. "That's it, isn't it? This is all your fault, isn't it? I'm here because of something _you _did. Amazing."

A mocking frown appeared on his face as he walked away from them, and Martha moved forward so she was stood beside the Doctor, supporting him. She hoped it gave him a little more confidence.

The Anti-Doctor waved a finger around in the air as he walked around the console, his back to them. "But something occurs to me. That was rather a _large _explosion. That must have caused quite a bit of destruction, don't you agree?" He turned around. "You must have killed _so many people," _he mocked, shaking his head.

The Doctor's jaw visibly tightened. "It was war. That's not an _excuse_, but I accept responsibility for what I've done. I regret it, and every day I wish there was something I could do to change it." He shook his head, and Martha remembered. On New Earth, after the Face of Boe's death. He had told her about Gallifrey, his home. His home that had burned along with the Daleks.

"But I can't," he said, his voice every so slightly shaky. "I'm not proud of what I've done," he continued, his voice rising and stabilising.

"And you think I am, is that it?" the Anti-Doctor asked, leaning forward over the console. But rather than sounding accusatory, he merely sounded curious.

But, to the Doctor, enough was enough. "You're everything I'm _not!_ You're a callous killer, you enjoy inflicting pain on others, and you put _your _survival over _everything _else. Of _course _you're proud of what you've done! You've survived! Congratulations! That's all that's important really, isn't it?!"

The Anti-Doctor glowered at him, but then snapped into a smile. "You're right. Totally happy with myself, me. Pleased as punch. Loved every minute of it, and I'm going to love every minute of _this_. Cyber Leader. Grab the Doctor and follow me. Cyber Unit One, you're with us. Cyber Units Two and Three, stay here and guard her." He smiled at her. "Because she does _so _enjoy making trouble."

The Cyberman with the black 'handles' walked forward and grabbed the Doctor from behind by both arms, lifting him from his feet and carrying him forward.

"Doctor!" Martha shouted, but her path was blocked by two Cybermen in front of her.

He shot her a warning look. "Martha, don't do anything stupid or heroic, all right? Unless, you know, you come up with a _really _good plan. Then you can go mad with the stupid heroic things."

"Martha! Your name's Martha!" the Anti-Doctor exclaimed, clapping his hands excitedly. "I knew a Martha. Well, I did and I didn't. I forgot her in my universe, but when I started thinking forward, I remembered her. Do you want to know how she ended up?"

She really didn't.

"Excuse me, but can we go?" the Doctor interjected. "These Cyberman hands are very uncomfortable."

The Anti-Doctor put on a face of abject horror. "Oh, I _am _sorry. Cybermen, let's go!" he announced, walking with a confident stride to the stairs, two Cybermen following. "By the way, what do you think of my new leather jacket look?" he asked over his shoulder.

The Doctor scrunched up his nose. "Bit bland for my tastes. But then again, my tastes don't stay the same for more than a few years at a time. You know the feeling?"

"You know, I think I do," he replied, talking as though they were two old ladies catching up.

Just before the Doctor descended out of sight, he gave her one last look which he was probably hoping would be reassuring.

It just made her feel more worried. She looked at the two Cybermen on either side of her. Slowly, she reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the Anti-Doctor's sonic screwdriver.

She couldn't shoot her way out. She blasts one Cyberman, the other kills her.

_Think like the Doctor, think like the Doctor…_

Keeping her head forward, she thumbed the screwdriver to the setting the Doctor used to solder together metals. She hoped everything was opposite in the Anti-Doctor's universe, or this would most likely end up with her being _very _dead.

As opposed to lightly dead, or medium dead.

God, now she was thinking up jokes like the Doctor. Half of her was pleased, the other half worried.

Just like the TARDIS itself right now. Praying they didn't notice the blue light, she pointed at one of the arms of the Cyberman on the left and thumbed the button.

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The Doctor couldn't remember the last time he'd been carried. He'd been taken prisoner before, definitely. Always with that same mix of trepidation, excitement and intense thinking, but never _ever _carried.

Well, probably not never _ever_, but it was definitely a long time. Of course, when he _had _been carried in the past, he'd probably been unconscious and woken up strapped to some machine-

Ah hah! San Francisco, the Master, Grace, Madame Butterfly, and the perfect pair of shoes!

He frowned. Perfect pair of shoes? Where had that come from?

But he was definitely carried that day. Or at least dragged.

Oh wait! New Earth, New New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York, Rose being possessed by Cassandra, cat nurses in nuns' wimples and the Face of Boe. _That _was the last time he had been knocked out and carried somewhere.

Although it _was _Rose's body, so he was probably dragged that day as well.

Oh wait! The S.S. Pentallian, possessed by a sun alien thing and carried by Martha. Oh, but damn it, he had been dragged then too!

Maybe he was just a heavy person.

The Anti-Doctor stopped at the door to the Cloister room, leaning next to it with his arm folded.

"You don't half like that room," the Doctor admonished.

"Open it," he said simply, nodding to the door.

"Oh, of course, no problem at all. Just let me reach over and- oh wait, why should I?"

"You already know the answer to that one, Doctor."

Martha.

The Doctor sighed. "All right. Let me down, and I'll-"

"I'm degenerating, not stupid. Cyber Leader, bring him to the door."

The Doctor scowled indignantly as he was bounced up and down by the Cyberman's footsteps. He opened the door, and the Anti-Doctor rushed inside, walking with that confident, purposeful stride that the Doctor knew all too well.

Seriously, how incredibly weird was this? He bet Jack never had to deal with this, wherever the heck he was, that immortal old cad. The thought of two people called Jack Harkness made him shudder in a bad way, so he quickly cut off that line of thought as they entered the room.

The Anti-Doctor's half of the cloister room was a mess.

He looked around with a disapproving frown. "And I thought _my _cloister room looked drab…"

"Cyber Leader, release him," his doppleganger said, his arms clasped behind his back.

Thick metal hands unclamped from his arms, and he fell the few inches to the ground. He shook his head and patted out any creases in his suit.

The Anti-Doctor watched him with a look of disgust. "I can't believe I was _ever _that bothered about my appearance."

"I can't believe I ever cared so _little _about my appearance. Ever hear about a little something called 'looking the part'?"

"So you look like a doctor now, is that it?"

"More than you, biker boy."

"Oh, reduced to name calling. How sad."

"What can I say? You bring out that side of me."

"At least you looked a little bit threatening with the coat. Now you just look like a ponce."

"Now who's resorting to name calling?"

The Anti-Doctor stopped the conversation with a smile.

"So!" the Doctor announced suddenly, shoving his hands in his pockets. Funny thing about his trouser pockets; he never kept _anything _in them. No loose change, keys, nothing. It probably happened when he realised he did a lot of running.

"What's the plan, then? Open my Eye of Harmony, absorb the massive expulsion of resulting positive energy and then get out of this universe before everything blows using my TARDIS?"

"I'll admit," the Anti-Doctor replied, nodding, "that's very close to my original plan."

"What did I get wrong?"

"I was going to kill _you_ before I went."

"Oh. Fair enough. But that's not your plan anymore?"

"Indeed not!" he yelled, leaping up onto the ledge that went around the perimeter of the eye like a pie crust. "No, I'm going to open _both _Eyes!"

The Doctor's hands removed themselves from his pockets.

"Both Eyes? Why?"

His copy leant forward, resting his hands on his knees. "You know what happens when one Eye opens, don't you?"

"I've seen it."

"Then you know that all laws of physics and time suddenly don't apply!"

"Yes, but that's because it changes those laws on a fundamental level!"

"And because of those fundamental changes, I can change, guess what?"

All the breath seemed to leave the Doctor's lungs, which was no mean feat.

"You think it will make you change from negative to positive."

"Bingo! Give the man a prize!" he cheered, holding out his arms like a game show host.

"But… that plan doesn't make any sense!" he frowned. "How are you going to control what it changes and what it doesn't?"

"I'm not! I'm just going to stand here until the reaction gets around to _me!"_

"But… that much energy from completely opposite sources… they'll act like magnets and just pull!" His entire face went from compressed to widened in the space of a few seconds. "And it won't stop with the two TARDIS's… _everything _will start to get sucked in until…"

"BOOM!" The Anti-Doctor laughed, clapping. "Isn't it _fantastic_?"

"But you don't have any guarantee that you'll be changed before the reaction reaches critical mass! What if you don't change before the explosion?"

He shrugged, still smiling as he plopped himself down on the side of the Eye. "I'm going to die anyway. Why should I care? Now, if you please," he said, gesturing to the retinal scanner.

The Doctor scoffed loudly. "Oh, yes of course! I'll just doom this universe and countless others to a chain reaction of endless explosions of energy. That sounds like me!"

"Cyber Leader, grab him," the Anti-Doctor said, picking something out of his teeth and inspecting it before flicking it away.

A metal hand clamped over his arm, and the Doctor thought quickly, as he usually ended up having to do in these situations. Honestly, sometimes he was so scatterbrained that he wondered how he ever came up with plans.

And then he came up with a plan and grinned.

He _loved _being brilliant.

Another metal hand clamped over his other arm, and it occurred to him how futile a brilliant plan was when being held by a robotic killing machine.

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Sloan had decided. It had taken him some time, but after much deliberation, observation and experimentation, he had come to a very well thought out conclusion.

The TARDIS made no sense.

There was air, but no ventilation system. It was warm, but there was no heating. Half the stuff that was in the TARDIS just shouldn't have been.

He was sat in the middle of the wardrobe room, just beside the darkened half. His feet felt like they had pins and needles whenever he stood on the dark side, so he had decided that the lighter side would result in a more comfortable stay.

Not too close to the bottomless chasm at the other side of the room, though. Not that he had a problem with heights. Well, actually he did, but denial felt good every now and then.

The door to the room opened loudly, knocking him from his thoughts.

Loud clanging footsteps descended down the steps, increasing in volume as they approached.

Sloan sprang to his feet and looked around for a hiding place or a weapon. Or something gold, but he wasn't sure if he could turn them into bullets like the Doctor had. Maybe if he just threw the coins.

The Cyberman was getting close. At least, he assumed it was a Cyberman. Could just be someone with very heavy metal shoes.

…right. He had only known the Doctor for, what, a few hours? Already, _already_, he was making crappy little jokes just like him. Made him wonder if the Doctor didn't have some latent form of mind control at his disposal.

He looked down over the ledge. He was strong enough to hold onto that ledge. And Cybermen had pretty flat, inflexible feet. If he could…

The Cyberman reached the bottom few steps, and Sloan took off his shirt, putting it on the ledge. He ran to one of the many racks of clothes and hid as best he could.

The footsteps stopped for a moment as the Cyberman surveyed the situation. More footsteps.

Slowly, he peeked around the clothes and saw the Cyberman looking curiously at the shirt that dangled precariously over the edge. It approached cautiously, its' back to him.

Sloan slipped out from his hiding place. The Cyberman bent forward to pick up the garment, and Sloan charged forward. It turned as Sloan came up behind it. He folded his arms in front of him like a battering ram and threw himself into the Cyberman.

Its' feet already halfway off the ledge, the impact was all that was needed to make it topple, and it let out a digitised scream as it fell. Sloan fell with it, desperately whipping his arm out and latching onto the ledge, his body swinging into the wall beneath it and slamming against it painfully. He watched the Cyberman fall, feeling a mix of relief, pity and fear.

He returned his attention to the ledge, and his precarious position upon it. With a grunt of effort, he swung his other arm up, and after a few practice tries heaved himself back up.

He lay on his back for a few moments, just breathing. His gaze travelled to where he had lay his shirt. The stupid Cyberman had taken the shirt with it when it fell.

Moving quickly, he picked out the first thing he could find from the rack and slipped it on. It was a white v-neck sweater, coloured lines just beneath the collar. Itchy too. He sprinted up the stairs and into the corridor, looking from side to side.

The door to the Cloister room was open. As he cautiously approached it he heard voices. One he recognised, the other unfamiliar.

"I'm going to die anyway. Why should I care? Now, if you please."

Next was the Doctor. "Oh, yes of course! I'll just doom this universe and countless others to a chain reaction of endless explosions of energy. That sounds like me!"

There was a brief pause. "Cyber Leader, grab him."

That was all the encouragement Sloan needed, and he stormed into the room, pistol drawn.

One Cyberman was stood next the door, but he was moving at such speeds that it barely had time to react by the time he was inside, pointing his gun at the one person he didn't recognise, guessing him to be the degenerated Anti-Doctor.

"Tell the Cyberman to let him go," he demanded, nodding to the captive Doctor.

The Anti-Doctor ignored him, instead looking angrily to the Cyberman holding the Doctor. The Time Lord, meanwhile, was just looking from Sloan to the Anti-Doctor in rapid succession. Sloan wasn't sure whether the look the Doctor was sending him was 'run you fool!' or 'hurry up and get me out of here!'.

"I thought you sent someone to get rid of him," the Anti-Doctor asked accusingly.

The Cyberman didn't reply, at least not to the Anti-Doctor. _"Cyber Unit Four. Report status."_

Sloan shrugged. "I may have pushed him down a big hole. Sorry."

The Anti-Doctor threw his arms out. "Ridiculous! Fine, I'll sort this out myself."

He reached into his jacket and pulled out the weapon he had used to kill Robertson, pointing it at the Doctor.

"Put the gun down, or I kill him." He looked to the Doctor. "You'll like your next face. More swashbuckling."

The Doctor didn't reply; his gaze was firmly locked on Sloan, shaking his head.

All it would take is one shot. He could hear that the Cyberman behind him wasn't pursuing. Shoot the Anti-Doctor, and shoot him again and again until he ran out of faces to change into.

Then he looked to the Doctor. This was insane. Sloan barely knew this man. And yet he didn't want to see him dead. There was something about him that Sloan thought the universe needed. Something _good_.

But then he thought of all the people the Anti-Doctor had killed. Planets, solar systems… entire universes destroyed because of _him._

His face screwed up and he closed his eyes in anguish as he tossed the gun to the floor, putting up his hands. The gun clattered loudly as it hit the ground. He looked to the Doctor apologetically. The Time Lord's only expression was one of sorrow.

The next thing he saw was a flash of light as the Anti-Doctor fired.

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The Doctor cried out as he saw Sloan's body fall to the floor. All he could do was stare as the boy's lifeless body slumped to the floor. Dead. Gone.

"Oops! Butter fingers, sorry," the Anti-Doctor said lightly, slipping the weapon back into his jacket. He turned back to the Eye, cricking his neck and tugging on his lapels to straighten his jacket.

"You didn't have to kill him…" the Doctor breathed, still staring at Sloan.

His copy cupped a hand around his ear. "I'm sorry, what?"

"You didn't have to kill him! He was surrendering!"

"But Doctor," he admonished mockingly. "It's in my nature. Surely you can respect that." He looked up to the Cyberman.

"Cyber Leader. Hold his eye of the retinal scanner, and make sure his eye is _open._" He pointed at the robot and shook his head. "Cybermen," he said, tutting and rolling his eyes in a 'what are you going to do?' fashion.

The Anti-Doctor dislodged the posts first from his side of the Eye, then the Doctor's, exposing the scanners beneath. Blue light shone forth from his Eye, and red from the Anti-Doctor's. Fitting, really.

The Doctor fought against the steel grip as hard as he could. But before he knew it, he was looking into the blinding blue light of the Eye's scanners. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Anti-Doctor doing the same on his side.

With a bellow that could have come from hell, the Eye opened, both on his side, and on the Anti-Doctor's. Blue energy from his side, red from the other. The Anti-Doctor stood exactly between the two lights, bathed in red and blue light. His arms shot out to the sides, his head going up to the heavens.

"Here it comes, Doctor! Life!"

The TARDIS shook, and showed no signs of stopping as the walls started to bend inwards towards the Eye.

The Cyberman holding him let loose a digitised scream of protest at the energies suddenly surrounding it. Its' voice failed and it died, going limp around the Doctor. He fell quickly to the ground and ran to the scanner to close the Eye.

Heavy hands clamped onto him and tossed him back. He fell over into an awkward heap. He got to his feet as quickly as he could but froze when he saw the Anti-Doctor pointing the Dalek gun at his chest.

His twisted reflection just smiled. The Doctor looked back. The other Cyberman had died as well. His gaze whipped down to the dead body of Sloan on the floor, and he rushed over to him, kneeling beside the young soldier. He reached up and closed his eyes.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

The Anti-Doctor laughed as the TARDIS roared in pain.

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(A/N: As always, reviews incredibly appreciated!)


	9. Polarity

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

(A/N: Many thanks to Hhgbh for beta work. Superb!)

_**The Other Doctor**_

_**Chapter Eight: Polarity**_

Holding the anti-sonic screwdriver in one direction for ten minutes got Martha thinking that perhaps the Doctor had a reason for being so irritable while he was working on the TARDIS; it didn't half make your hand ache after awhile. Not to mention her wrist.

And her thumb. Oh, the bloody thumb was killing her.

She hoped that was enough. She thumbed it off and switched it back to the laser setting. Over the past ten minutes, she had been degrading the left Cyberman's shoulder joint so it would fall off when it went to grab her. She hoped. That way, if she moved quickly enough, she would be able to blast one Cyberman through the head and the other's arm would drop off before it had a chance to grab her.

Easy.

Completely, totally and tremendously easy.

Then what was the hesitation?

Two huge Cybermen who could kill her a dozen times over in the space of a few seconds? Never even occurred to her. No, it was definitely the fact that the Doctor would be annoyed with her for spilling Cyberman lubricants all over the floor. Yes, that was it. Most definitely.

She took a few calming breaths and took aim at the Cyberman on the right, hoping the upward angle would go through the brain.

She couldn't believe she was thinking like this. She was supposed to be a doctor, for God's sake. And here she was, thinking about angles for laser blasts to penetrate brains. There was something wrong and perverse about this. But then again, this whole situation felt wrong and perverse. Another Doctor running around with a face that the real Doctor used to have before she met him, even though she could only imagine him with the one he's got now. Was his personality different, she wondered. She frowned.

_Maybe that's something to think about after you've escaped from the two killer robots, Martha._

Martha got herself into a crouching position like an Olympic runner. The Cybermen didn't react to the change. With a quick movement of her thumb, she activated the screwdriver.

A brilliant blue laser lanced out through the Cyberman's head, and it fell to the floor with a garbled scream. It only just now occurred to Martha that the Cybermen that had invaded Earth had laser weapons too.

She ran around the console and to the stairs, not even bothering to wait and see if her little experiment had born any fruit. She pounded down the steps and shot off down the corridor, thinking a few times that she might fall over like that bit at the end of Die Hard 2.

She spotted the open wardrobe room door and dodged inside. For a few minutes, she just stood there, catching her breath. She listened. No footsteps coming down the stairs from the control room. Martha nervously glanced down the spiral staircase to try and get a view of the wardrobe room.

"Sloan!" she hissed.

No reply. Where the hell was he? He was supposed to be in here. Not to mention he was meant to be a soldier. If he had run off in a scare or something she would kill him. Or at least hurt him an obscene way that the Doctor wouldn't approve of.

Then she heard it. Pushing the young soldier out of her mind, she returned her attention to the corridor.

There it was. The familiar clanging. But now there was some distance between them. She could take aim with the screwdriver and blow a hole in him, easy.

Martha paused. This was just wrong. She shouldn't be getting a rush from being chased by a killing machine.

The TARDIS shook with an almighty groan, and Martha struggled to keep her balance on the stairs.

The loud footsteps paused, and after a few seconds, Martha leapt out into the corridor, screwdriver at the ready. Before she even got a chance to move her thumb, the Cyberman fell to its knees. It screamed as electricity lanced across its body, making it shudder uncontrollably before freezing. It seemed to flick its head to look at Martha before collapsing to the ground with a surprisingly dull thud.

Martha frowned and looked down at the screwdriver, impressed.

_Must be a different setting._

Cautiously, she got to her feet and stood up, leaning over to the side to look at the Cyberman's right arm. She grinned and let out a little 'ha!' when she saw that the arm was missing. She stopped when she realised how like the Doctor she must have looked at that moment.

Another groan accompanied a bucking of the TARDIS, and Martha fell against the wall. She planted her hands against the wall and pushed herself away. Then she noticed the wall. It looked like it was bending towards her. She poked an experimental finger into the wall. It felt pliable, like clay. Quickly, she withdrew the offending digit and studied the wall from a safer distance. Then she realised; it wasn't being pulled towards _her, _it was…

She looked over and saw the open door to the Cloister Room, blue and red lights flashing all over the place like a murder scene. Not needing much encouragement, she ran inside, quickly blinded by the strobe light effect of red and blue that assaulted her eyes. She put up a hand in front of her eyes to shield what she safely assumed were her already scorched retinas.

Gradually, she mad out two figures standing before the flashing display. She recognised them almost instantly. The Anti-Doctor on the left, the Doctor on the right. Her gaze travelled downwards. Two Cybermen lay dead on the ground. And…

All the strength in her legs seemed to leave her as she saw Sloan's dead body, splayed out on the ground.

The Doctor must have sensed her somehow, because he turned and saw her pretty quickly.

"Martha!" Her head whipped to look at him. "Run!"

The Anti-Doctor, hearing this, turned and spotted her. He took aim with his Dalek gun.

Her jaw clenched, Martha fired the screwdriver first, hitting the warped Time Lord's arm and making him fall back from the force of the blast.

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, the Doctor sprinted over to her and grabbed her by the arm, pausing only for a moment to look at Sloan's body and the reaction happening in front of them.

"It's too late! You can't stop the chain reaction now!" the doppelganger shouted as he struggled to his feet. From where she stood, it looked like the Anti-Doctor was smiling. "There's nothing you can do!"

Martha followed along behind the Doctor, her eyes never leaving Sloan's body until they were out and into the corridor. She followed him all the way up the stairs and to the control room.

"Doctor, what's going on? What's he doing?" she asked breathlessly, clambering up the stairs. She tried to ignore the Cyberman whose brain contents had been splattered across the floor by her laser blast.

The Doctor didn't seem to notice. He didn't even look at the Cyberman - or her, for that matter - as he moved around the half lit room, smashing his hands against the panel with such force it was a wonder it didn't break.

"He's opened both Eyes of Harmony at the same time. He's going to destroy the universe. But the reaction won't stop with that; if it's not stopped, then it could continue on through the barriers between realities and destroy _everything_."

Concentrating only on the lit side of the room, the Doctor worked feverishly at the controls. The TARDIS rumbled again, and the 'engine' started working, wheezing and grinding in a way that made Martha feel strangely comforted.

"What's it doing? Are we just leaving?" she asked, running up to him.

He shook his head, his eyes intensely focused on the monitor. "We don't have enough power to escape the pull of the Eyes. But, if I use the TARDIS to absorb all the chaos energy the Eyes are throwing out…"

"What? What's that going to do?"

"Think of it this way," he shouted over the rumble of the TARDIS, bounding over to the dark side of the room. There was a monitor there too, in the exact reflection of where it was on their TARDIS. "These two TARDISes are from a positive universe and a negative universe. They're like magnets; positive is north, negative is south."

"So they're attracted to each other?"

"Right. Usually the attraction is minor, but because of the two Eyes the pull has got unimaginable strength. It's spreading out across the universe, pulling in _everything._ But! If I set each TARDIS to attract all the positive energy from the Eyes, and then build up all that energy for one burst, it'll-"

"-be like north and north. They'll repel each other!" she shouted, smiling excitedly.

He grinned. "Repelled across the universe!"

Martha's smile faded. "But what'll happen to us then?"

"I've set a course for Drentax Five. Hopefully we won't overshoot it too much."

"And… what about his TARDIS? The Anti-Doctor's."

"No idea." He suddenly slammed his hand down on the control panel. He slipped on his glasses and inspected the monitor more closely. "Oh, come on!"

"What?" she asked, coming up beside him to look in the other monitor.

"I'm working on the Anti-TARDIS, so everything's going pretty much cocks up. The negative energy from the Anti-Eye is degrading it even faster."

"But… it's a good thing you're brilliant, right?"

He looked to her, panicking, and Martha felt a sinking feeling in her stomach.

Then he grinned, and all was right with the universe.

"Too right."

He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and knelt beneath the panel.

"Hold this button down when I say so," he said, stretching an arm out from underneath the panel and pointing to a button. There was an agonising pause of a few seconds.

"Aaand… now!"

She pressed it down, and the Anti-TARDIS sprang to life, the dark side of the column wheezing away, although this side sounded more like an old man struggling to walk up a hill. But still, working was working.

"Doctor, it's working!" she yelled, grinning inanely.

"Keep it held down!"

She quickly removed the smile and concentrated on the button. Be more professional, Ms Jones. How often had she heard _that _from Mr Stoker?

A heavy hand clamped down on her shoulder, and she turned to see the Anti-Doctor staring down at her, rage powering him.

"…Doctor!"

"Just keep it held down, Martha!"

The Anti-Doctor grabbed her arm and tossed her across the room, throwing her against a support strut. Her head collided with the metal with a thud, and she fell to the floor. Groaning and in a daze, she struggled to roll over, struggled even to get up.

Annoyed that his companion had stopped, the Doctor heaved himself out from underneath the panel.

"Martha, I said-"

He froze as he came up and ended up nose to nose with his previous face. The Anti-Doctor backhanded him, flinging the Doctor across the room and to a guardrail on the other side.

Martha pulled herself up, a tentative hand over the back of her head where she had hit the support strut.

The Anti-Doctor deactivated the energy absorption on his side of the TARDIS, and smiled down at the Doctor.

"Not exactly going as planned?"

Looking panicked and thoroughly hopeless, the Doctor stared up at the TARDIS 'engine', and then down at the Anti-Doctor.

Suddenly, he relaxed, getting to his feet and putting his hands in his pockets.

"Well, not _exactly_, but then again, when does it ever?" He stood on tiptoes to look past his copy. "Right, Martha?"

She blinked to try and clear her blurry vision, but somehow managed a nod.

"_Eeexactly_. Always making stuff up on the fly, me. Just like it occurs to me that if I destroyed the paradigm connector that I rigged while I was under there, then your TARDIS would start absorbing positive energy and just _wouldn't stop _until it had absorbed _everything_."

The Anti-Doctor looked to the control panel, and then to the Doctor.

"You fixed the paradigm connector? I'm impressed," he said, sounding genuinely happy at the fact. "If I'd had that months ago then this process would have gone much more smoothly. But," he chuckled, folding his arms and leaning back against the control panel, "You're still beaten. You haven't got anything that would let you destroy the paradigm connector."

"What, you mean like… oh, I don't know, picking an example out of thin air… an anti-sonic screwdriver?"

The Anti-Doctor clearly had no idea what an anti-sonic screwdriver was. But even though she still couldn't see straight, Martha knew a cue when she heard one. She reached into her jacket and tossed the anti-sonic screwdriver over the blob of colour that looked like the Anti-Doctor and towards the blob of colour that looked like the Doctor.

The Doctor took a hand out of his pocket and easily snatched it out of the air. He aimed it beneath the control panel. The Anti-Doctor's smile vanished and he charged forward.

"No!"

A blue laser sprang out of the screwdriver, sending sparks flying and smoke belching from underneath the negative TARDIS.

The Anti-Doctor turned back to the panel, desperately trying to get something to work. He pounded on the monitor with his fist. The Doctor got to his feet walked over to where Martha leant against the support strut, her vision clearing.

"_Never _hit Martha," he muttered.

Martha blinked. Did she just hear what she thought she heard?

The Anti-Doctor looked back to him in disbelief before returning his frenzied attention to the TARDIS controls.

The Doctor ran to Martha and grabbed her by the hand.

"Come on!"

They both sprinted down the stairs, skipping about three steps at a time. Which, considering Martha was feeling pretty dizzy, was pretty good for her.

"Doctor, couldn't he just stop the absorbing thing on our TARDIS?"

"Nope, I locked the process on our side. Only I can get it going again."

She tried to nod, but that made things worse. "Where are we going?"

Vision was almost clear now. That was good.

"The Cloister Room!" he announced. "We need to grab on to any part of our TARDIS in that room and just _hold _on!"

"But isn't that where the big reaction's going to happen?" she asked, trying to slow them down.

"Exactly!"

Martha didn't really understand, but she followed him inside anyway. The same red and blue light bathed the room, but now some purple light was beginning to filter through.

The Doctor sucked in some air. "The Eyes have already started merging… this is going to a rough one."

He ran over to Sloan and dragged him to one of the posts beside the blue half of the Eye, curling one of the young soldier's arms around it.

Martha watched him do it, feeling a bit horrified that he was disturbing the dead. "What are you doing?"

He looked up at her and winked.

"Trust me, you'll like this. Now," he said, running to the side of the eye and pointing to the posts, "grab on! We haven't got long before the TARDISes have absorbed all the energy they can."

He put his eye to a hole on one side of the Eye, and the red side closed. After it closed, he placed a post that looked as thin as an old man's cane into the hole. He did the same on the blue side, slotting the much thicker post into place. He nodded to that post while he attended to something.

"Hang on," Martha said, frowning as she grabbed onto it, wrapping her arms around the thick stone.

"What?" he asked curiously, doing something with his sonic screwdriver to the bottoms of the posts.

"Where is all this positive energy _going?"_

"It's being stored in the Eyes." A quick nod to the closed flashing structure below them accompanied his explanation.

The different pieces clicked together in Martha's head. "So… we're going to be _right next _to it when the TARDISes repel each other?"

That big maniacal grin made its' appearance on the Doctor's face as he jogged over to the post and wrapped his arms around it. He and Martha were now facing each other.

"Where else? Eye of the storm, Martha," he announced with relish, winking at her, "eye of the storm. Because there's so much positive energy being released here, we have the most likelihood of staying on _our _TARDIS once the reaction goes off than we were if we just grabbed onto any old positively charged thing."

She just stared at him.

"Still not following?"

"No, I get it."

He nodded, satisfied, but then took another look at her face. "You don't, do you?"

"Not a clue."

The 'stupid human' look returned. "All right, let me put it this way. Once the TARDISes repel each other, which one would you rather be in; his or mine?"

"Yours."

"Right. Then you hold on here, because there's more positive energy in this room than there is anywhere else in the TARDIS. Better?"

She nodded. "Much, thanks."

He grinned and nodded. "All right, the energy is going to be released in," he stuck his arm out to bring his watch out from under his cuff, "Ooo, one minute. Better hold on."

Wind started to pick up, pulling into the Eye.

"Doctor?" she shouted, not knowing whether she was being heard over the winds.

"Don't worry, it'll pass! The negative Eye is just adapting to all the positive energy suddenly being poured into it!"

"What were you doing with the screwdriver?"

"Remote control! When I push this button," he said, lifting up the screwdriver, "the Eyes will open and release all the energy the TARDISes are sucking in!" He wriggled his eyebrows. "Then we go for a ride," he shouted in his best cowboy accent.

The room shook, and he looked up. Martha followed his gaze. The two ceilings were merging in the middle, being pulled into a white vortex.

"Oops, guess I overestimated. Time to open the floodgates!" He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and pointed it to the Eye.

"No!"

It was the Anti-Doctor, charging at them.

Without hesitation, the Doctor pushed the button, and the Eyes opened. Blinding pure blue light blasted out of the Eye, and the wind suddenly picked up again, this time managing to yank them off their feet.

The warped Time Lord ran and jumped at the post, latching on to Martha, his hands clawing at her trouser leg.

"I'm not going to die! I don't want to die!"

"Everyone dies!" the Doctor shouted. "Martha! Take this!" Struggling against the wind, he managed to pass her the anti-sonic screwdriver. Instinctively, she aimed it for the Anti-Doctor.

Blue-white energy surrounded them like a tornado. She stared into his eyes, and for the first time, saw the fear there. His skin was burning against the influence of the positive energy, flaking off into the tornado. Tears welled up in the Anti-Doctor's eyes. And suddenly, Martha didn't see some twisted psychotic.

All she saw was a frightened little child.

The Doctor screamed at her over the hurricane of brilliant blue temporal energy. "Martha! You've got to do it _now!"_

Her lip quivered.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. She fired the weapon into his shoulder. With a scream, he fell away and disappeared in the storm. Martha's grip on the screwdriver loosened, and it too vanished, thrown to the winds.

"HOLD ON TIGHT!"

With all the strength she had, Martha pulled herself to the post, trying to find some comfort in the cold stone. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that the screams she could hear were her own guilty conscience, and not the Anti-Doctor.

There was a sudden jolt like nothing Martha had felt before as her body was flung around the post. But, much to her own amazement, her grip held steadfast.

Gradually, the winds started to subside, and the blinding light faded. Her body slowly fell to the ground like a feather, touching down with such care it felt as though she were being lowered by some imaginary hand.

Then, silence.

"Martha?"

She didn't think she had ever heard his voice so gentle.

"Martha? Are you all right?"

Her eyes fluttered open, and the Doctor's concerned visage leaned over her, his glasses reflecting her image back at her. Had he been wearing those before?

Cautiously, she reached out a hand and let her fingertips touch his cheek, which made him smile and frown at her all at the same time. Satisfied that he wasn't some hallucination, she sat up and pulled him into a fierce hug.

She could practically feelhis grin as he returned the embrace.

After about half a minute of that, the Doctor prised himself away from her and gave her a brief 'are you okay?' nod, which she returned. He stood up, offering her his hand. Once on their feet, they both looked around the room.

"Looks pretty well lit, wouldn't you say?" the Doctor said, smiling. He looked over to her. "Ms Jones, I think we're one TARDIS again."

She looked to the Eye, which was now closed. "Hang on. How did that happen?"

The Doctor lifted his sonic screwdriver and lit it up. "All part of the program," he said, making a clicking noise as he winked and grinned.

A loud gasp made Martha jump, and Sloan heaved himself to a sitting position. Blinking in surprise, he looked down at his hands.

"Am… I dead?"

The Doctor's grin was now permanent. "God, imagine if you were. That would be a bit boring, wouldn't it? The afterlife being _exactly _the same as this one."

Her mouth somewhere between a wild grin and gaping, Martha looked from the Doctor to Sloan, and then back again. Finally, she settled for rushing over to Sloan and giving him a solid hug, which seemed to surprise and embarrass the solider in equal measure.

She pulled herself away from him and looked to the Doctor, her arms firmly crossed.

"Go on, then. How did you do this?"

"Not me," he said, shrugging. "All that positive energy swirling around here undid all the negative energy from the Anti-Doctor's Dalek weapon."

Their smiles faltered briefly at the mention of the Anti-Doctor, but their overall joy at still being alive overrode any negative thoughts.

The Doctor sprang to life. "Right! How about we see where we ended up then?" He bounded out of the room, leaving them to just follow in his wake. Sloan's dazed look said it all, and Martha couldn't help but laugh as she helped him to his feet. As they walked through the corridor to the stairs, she noticed Sloan examining his body for any damage. It was then that she realised he was wearing nothing on the top of his body but a cricket sweater. She decided to ask later as they started ascending up the stairs to the control room. Martha half expected to see dead Cybermen littering the floor.

"There! Drentax Five, the year 3341!" the Doctor said, pointing to the monitor.

Sloan frowned. "But… I'm from the year 3319."

The Doctor smiled and nodded towards the door, his hands in his pockets. "Just a little sneak preview."

With only a quick unsure glance to Martha, Sloan walked to the door, the two following close behind. He put his hand on the lock and looked back at them cautiously once more.

"Go on, we're right behind you!" the Doctor urged with a pointing finger, rolling his eyes to Martha and making her smile.

The soldier opened the doors and stepped out. Martha gasped as she entered the new Drentax Five. The grass seemed greener than green, the sky…

"Bluer than blue, isn't it?" the Doctor said, looking up.

Martha nodded, and her gaze travelled around. Her eyes widened as she noticed the cliff on her right.

"Hang on, this is where we landed before!" she said, looking to the Doctor.

Looking bored, he glanced over at the TARDIS. "Oh. Is it?"

He broke out into a grin.

She gave him one right back.

"I…" They both looked to Sloan, who turned to look numbly at them. "This is _my _planet?"

"Yep," the Doctor replied happily, putting an 'ah' noise after the 'p'.

The soldier looked delirious. "But… how?"

"This universe's natural order is reasserting itself," the Doctor explained, leaning back against the TARDIS door. "Without an Anti-Doctor to drain the positive energy and to spread the negative… everything's back to normal."

"And this only takes twenty years?"

He tugged on his ear as he looked around. "Well… this isn't _all _natural. I would think there is _some _environmental acceleration involved. But, nothing wrong with that, eh? Just gets you there faster."

Sloan nodded, the dumbfounded look on his face becoming his default expression as he looked around.

"So… you're going to leave me here?"

"Would you like me to?"

He opened his mouth, the 'yes' seemingly ready on his lips. But then thought on it. Gradually, he shook his head.

"Actually… no. I should help make this happen. I _want…_ to help make this happen."

The Doctor smiled. "And I'm sure you will."

Sloan shook his head and looked around, smiling. "It's strange… the Anti-Doctor is all I've known since I was a kid." He looked over at the Doctor. "How do you… move on from just surviving?"

"Are you joking?" he asked incredulously, but still grinning all the same. He suddenly came to life, bounding around in front of the two humans like a rabbit "_This _is where the good stuff starts! Life!" he shouted, throwing out his arms. "The sun, the birds, the friends, the girlfriends, the boyfriends, the marriages, the children, the arguments, the smiles, the… the… _everything!_ In fact, you've got so much waiting for you, I almost wish I could stay."

He looked over to Martha.

"But! We're as much strangers to this reality as the Anti-Doctor was," he finished, walking over to her. "Well, maybe not quite as much. Well, maybe not that much. Well, maybe not at all, but the point still stands."

Sloan's smile became more wistful as he looked out over the cliff and to the coast.

Slowly, his gaze travelled back to the grinning Time Lord. "Doctor… what happened to him?"

He took a reluctant breath. "Hard to tell. I set a course on his TARDIS for the center of a black hole, but… whether it made it there is anyone's guess. His TARDIS was either destroyed by the sudden repulsion, or it had absorbed enough positive energy to…" he sighed and shrugged. "I don't know."

Sloan stiffened. "So he could come back?"

"He was thrown away into a vortex of positive temporal energy. He wasn't anchored to anything, positive or negative. The odds of him ending up with his TARDIS are… incredibly, fantastically, _phenomenonally _slim."

"That doesn't answer the question, Doctor."

The Doctor stared impassively at him for a moment. "No, I suppose it doesn't. But no-one, positive or negative, can survive that much temporal energy without some kind of protection. _We _were protected because we were holding on to the TARDIS."

"So… what? He was torn apart?"

"If that makes you feel better."

"…it doesn't."

"I didn't think it would."

The soldier took one last look around the landscape.

Martha looked over to her travelling companion, smiling nervously.

"Doctor…"

"Yes?"

"After you blew up the TARDIS control panel…"

"Yes?" he asked again, clueless.

"You said… to the Anti-Doctor, you said…"

Realisation struck, and suddenly there was something fantastically interesting in the distance for the Doctor to look at.

"Oh. Well, yes, well, I… that was just… you know…" he managed, tugging at his ear.

She nodded far too frantically, laughing away. "Oh yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, I understand."

"Good. Exactly. Because, you know, it's, it was… yeah. Good," he finished, looking back to her with the barest hint of a smile on his lips.

Before any more of this wonderfully coherent conversation could develop, Sloan walked over to them.

"Take me home, Doctor. I've got work to do."

The Time Lord nodded and gestured for Sloan and Martha to go into the TARDIS first.

The two walked in, and after a brief look around the landscape and a smile, the Doctor did too. A few seconds later, the TARDIS faded away, heading for the year 3319.

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(A/N: Although this may look like the end, there's still a _little _more to go. As usual, I look forward to and welcome all reviews.

And in Doctor Who news: David Tennant will be with us for some time, it seems (into 2011, anyway). Hoorah, I say!

Anyway, reviews. Please give them, and thank you.)


	10. Learning

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

(A/N: Excellent beta work plus much gratitude equals Hhgbh)

_**The Other Doctor**_

_**Chapter Nine: Learning**_

The Doctor and Martha walked casually behind Sloan, whose purposeful stride had left them behind as they made the walk from the TARDIS to the white tent they had explored upon their first visit to Drentax Five.

Strange how a place could change so much. The biting winds had subsided, and Martha could finally see some sunlight shining through. She was still freezing cold, though. At least the ash snow had stopped for awhile.

"So how is our Drentax Five different from this one?" she asked, looking over at the Doctor. She had no idea how he could walk around as leisurely as you please with his hands in his pockets. Her entire body was clenched tighter than anything, and she was still freezing.

"Basically what we just saw, except with some beach houses… beaches… because, you know, beach houses would be pretty redundant without beaches…"

Martha nodded. "Sounds nice."

"Better than nice. The food there is _gorgeous_. Too gorgeous, really."

"Is there _anything_ bad about it?"

He thought for a moment. "…too smiley? Is that a valid complaint?"

She let out a laugh. "Don't think so."

"Then no."

Contended smiles carried them through the comfortable silence as they walked a few minutes more, and they saw lights from the encampment reaching up into the clouds. Sloan glanced quickly back at them with a smile, and they both returned it. The soldier increased his pace.

Martha steeled herself. "Doctor?"

"Yeah?" he replied quickly, whipping his head around to look at her as they walked.

"What the Anti-Doctor said… about you causing the… explosion. It was the Time War he was talking about, wasn't it?"

The Doctor's stare was blank. "It was, yes."

Expecting the reply but not quite sure how to respond to it, Martha took a deep breath. "So did you really cause it? Did you…?"

The words caught in her throat. She didn't want to say the words out loud and see that hardened look come over his face. That face that told her he would do anything if he thought he was right.

He stopped, and so did Martha, leaving Sloan to walk on without them.

"Sometimes, Martha… there are things that have to be done. That's nowhere near an excuse, but… it _is _a fact. You've seen it before. With Lazarus."

Martha frowned. She hadn't really thought of that as the Doctor _killing _Lazarus. Lazarus fell after the Doctor bombarded him with those sound waves, but… it never really occurred to her. She had just been so glad to be rid of the monster that had been intent on killing her that the moral ramifications of what had just happened never really hit her. Until the Doctor hit her with them.

"I'll understand if you want to leave-"

"No, no!" she blurted, almost instinctively. As much as it shamed her to admit it as a doctor-in-training, there was something comforting about having someone who would do anything to protect those in need. And besides, she could try to steer him in the right direction if it looked like he was going too far with his 'it has to be done' philosophy. To stop him from getting too detached from the humanity he loved so much.

"I mean… I'm not _okay _with it, not really, but… if I'm here… maybe I'll be able to stop you if you started getting too Anti-Doctorish. Not that you would."

His eyes bored into her, and she had to stop herself from shuffling around on the spot and looking around nervously. Then, with that lightness of tone and bounce in his step which said 'not a care in the world', he continued on.

"All right then. Off we go."

After shaking her head, Martha continued on after him. Sloan's head had almost completely disappeared over the horizon.

"He said he was always cold."

"Hm?" The Doctor really wasn't paying attention, his focus on his once again drenched shoes. It probably served him well he had several pairs of the same type of shoe in the TARDIS.

She rolled her eyes. "The Anti-Doctor. He said he was always cold." She looked at him. "What about you?"

He shrugged. "Don't know. Check," he said, outstretching his hand and nodding down to it.

Her throat suddenly and inexplicably dry, Martha cautiously reached down and took his hand. With a smile he interlocked their hands.

"Well?"

She nodded hopelessly. "It's… it's nice. Warm. And nice."

"Good," he said lightly, giving her hand a squeeze before letting it drop. Looking idly around the grey landscape as though nothing had happened, he slid his hand back into his pocket. The tent was coming into view in the distance.

So much for being freezing. God, she was burning up. She put a cold hand to her cheek to cool her face down a bit. Ahead of them, Sloan disappeared into the tent.

Within a few seconds the soldier popped his head back out excitedly, looking like a child on Christmas day.

"Come on! You've got to see this!" he yelled, waving them over.

Martha and the Doctor looked to each other and smiled at the hardened soldier's childlike expression. They sped up their pace and jogged to the tent. With a grand bow, he opened the entrance for her and gestured for Martha to enter first.

She returned the favour with a little nod and went inside. She could only offer an open mouthed smile at what she saw. A brief laugh of disbelief left her.

All of the people were awake. Awake and alive. Smiling, talking, eating, laughing…

She felt the Doctor's presence beside her, and smiled at him.

"Amazing, isn't it?" He said, smiling. "His influence has only been gone from this universe for a few hours, and already they're recovering. You've got to love life."

"What, you mean just yours?"

"No." He smiled. "Well, yes. But really, I mean…" He gestured outwards with his arms. "_Life!_ How it just keeps on battling on against all odds…"

"You'll smile at anything, won't you?"

He shrugged. "Pretty much."

Sloan talked excitedly with some of his fellow soldiers, who couldn't seem to believe their eyes. They welcomed him back with hugs all around. It was strange to see him enthusiastically doing anything, let alone talking and laughing. One of them told him something, and he frowned. He looked back to the Doctor, his frown deepening, which had a knock-on effect on the Doctor. Sloan walked over to him.

"Doctor…" he stopped, thinking about how to phrase his complaint, "they say I've been gone for weeks."

Martha tried to hide her smile as the Doctor avoided the soldier's gaze.

The Doctor took a long breath. "Oh!" His entire face contorted as he tried to think of something to say. "Yeah… sorry about that." He pulled on his ear absently. "Teensy error. Didn't cause too much trouble, did it?"

"They've already had my funeral," he said, his voice low.

An awkward look unlike anything Martha had ever seen on the Doctor almost made her laugh at loud. "Ah. Well… just means you get a party," he offered, smiling in a vain attempt to get the soldier to forgive and forget.

The sour look on his face didn't seem to be giving that impression. Suddenly, he broke out in a wide grin very reminiscent of the Doctor's.

"I'll deal with it. I suppose going back a few weeks wouldn't be possible, huh?"

"No, you're part of events here now. If we went back and changed it then there'd be a whole _host_ of problems that you _don't_ want to have to deal with."

"End of the universe?" he guessed wryly, which made Martha smile.

"Well, yes, if you want to sum it up in four words…" he mumbled, a little annoyed at having what Martha expected was a big speech scuppered.

Sloan smiled and looked down to his feet, his hands on his hips. He looked back up to them, as happy as anyone Martha had ever seen.

"Been there, done that."

The Doctor smiled. "And you can't say that very often, can you?"

Sloan thrust his hand out. "Thank you, Doctor."

He gladly shook his hand. "And you, Lieutenant."

Sloan smiled and looked to Martha. Unsure of what to do, he just stuck his hand out as well.

"Goodbye Martha."

Smiling, she took it. "Take care, yeah?"

"…yeah. You too."

The three stood around awkwardly for a few moments.

Martha rolled her eyes. "Oh, come here," she groaned, pulling Sloan into a hug. The Doctor grinned, apparently having been waiting for that, and thrust a thumb towards the exit.

"Well, better be off."

Sloan and Martha released each other, and the soldier looked to the Doctor.

"Oh, I uh…" Sloan looked down at the white cricket sweater he was still wearing. "…hope you don't mind if I keep this."

"Nostalgia, Lieutenant?" Martha asked, cocking an eyebrow along with her smile.

His earnest smile spread over from her to the Doctor. "I guess you could say that."

The Doctor looked down at the sweater, a troubled expression on his face. "Oh, but… I liked that jumper."

Martha scoffed loudly. "Oh, my arse! You have _never _worn that!"

"I _used to!"_ He insisted. "It was very comfy…" he mumbled.

"Actually, I thought it was kind of itchy," Sloan interjected, drawing a scowl from the Doctor.

"Well you're not supposed to wear it by itself! Wear a shirt underneath!" He turned and left the tent. "Some people, honestly… I know it's a parallel universe, but you'd think a human would just instinctively _know _how to properly wear a cricket jumper…"

Martha smiled at Sloan, and the two shared a silent goodbye nod. The Doctor poked his head back through.

"Come on Martha, we've got a hole in the time vortex to get through!"

"All right, coming."

One last wave to Sloan was all she managed before she disappeared out of the tent.

Sloan stared at the exit of the tent with a content smile for awhile before turning back and returning to his friends. The future looked bright.

Martha ran up beside the Doctor, eventually managing to match his stride.

"So when did you wear that sweater, then?"

He looked over at her, annoyed. "I'm not making it up."

"I never said you _were_! Blimey, talk about defensive…"

"I'm not being defensive, but you're giving me that 'the Doctor's mad and he's an alien' look."

She gaped. "What 'the Doctor's mad and he's an alien' look?"

"_That _one. Wait, no, you're not doing it now. Oh wait, there it is. No, wait… and _there _it is."

They smiled and walked for a bit longer in silence. Martha looked over into the distance, enjoying the view of the snow covered fields that seemed to stretch on forever. Now she could see it and the blizzard had died down, it was actually quite beautiful. She looked back to the Doctor.

"So when _did _you wear that sweater? Did you… you know, look different then as well?"

"That I did," he said, nodding. "Blond, can you believe that?" His smile seemed like he was trying to impress her.

"_You _were blond?"

"Yeah, and the _only _time, too. The rest of the time it's either brown or grey," he complained.

Now _this _Martha had a hard time believing. "Flipping _grey_? How old did you look?"

He blew out through his lips like a horse as he thought. "I don't know. Sixties, seventies?"

"You're joking."

"I cannot tell a lie," he said, putting one hand on his chest and the other in the air.

"Did you do as much running around as you do now?"

"Sometimes. Not much though. I only had grey hair twice," he added defensively. "And the second time I had a car!" He grinned as he said 'car'.

Martha sighed inwardly. Men and their automobiles. "What did you need a car for? What about the TARDIS?"

"Well, the Time Lords weren't too happy with me, so I might have been sort of, kind of… banished to Earth at the time."

She laughed as they reached the TARDIS, and the Doctor hid his embarrassed face while he unlocked the door. Martha could see the Doctor being a bit of a troublemaker for his own people. He was probably a right smartarse in school.

"When was this, then?" she asked, leaning against the door.

"Your timeframe or mine?"

"Mine."

"Late seventies, early eighties?" he replied, twisting the key and pushing his door open.

They entered the control room and the Doctor flung his coat on the same support strut he always did. He walked around the console to the monitor, tapping at some random bits here and there.

Martha followed him around. "So what was the car like?"

"Oh, she was beauty." He looked at her, reminiscing. "Bessie. Mind of her own sometimes."

She tried to contain her laughter. "'Bessie'? You called a car 'Bessie'?"

"What's wrong with 'Bessie'? Beautiful name."

"Nothing, it's just-"

"Nonono!" he shouted, his voice rising in pitch. "I'm taking you to Earth to meet someone called Bessie, and you can explain to them why their name is so funny."

She laughed. "Oh come on, I was just joking." Her smile faltered as he worked quickly on the monitor. He walked around the console, as though seriously preparing them for a voyage. "What are you doing?"

He looked at her, deadly serious. "I told you. Taking you to Earth, meet Bessie, explain the hilarity of her name."

"It's just because it's a funny name for a car, is all!"

The Doctor didn't reply, he just stared at her while he started up the TARDIS.

"Explain it to Bessie. See if she understands."

She pointed a finger at him. "I'll kill you for this, you know that?"

"Well, I've got plenty more faces," he replied, grinning.

Martha fell silent at that, but the Doctor didn't seem to notice, moving back to the monitor and occupying himself with something there.

"Have you got any pictures?" She leant against the console, trying to look relaxed.

"Hm?" he said absently, still concentrating on the monitor.

"Of your… other faces. Have you got any pictures?"

He brought his gaze up to look at her. "Probably. I'm not usually a snapshot kind of person."

"No, really?" she shot back sarcastically.

They both smiled.

After a few more seconds of work on the monitor, he stood up to his full height. He stretched laboriously. "All right, if you really want to," he said, putting his hands up in surrender. "Oh, by the way, we're now back in our home reality."

"What? Really?" Frowning, she looked to the monitor as though she would suddenly understand it.

"Yup." He put special emphasis on the 'p', making a popping noise.

"Didn't take very long."

"Yeah, well…" He shrugged. "I'm brilliant, like you said."

"Are you ever going to let me forget that?"

He grinned. "Not in a bajillion years!"

"Lucky that's not a real number then."

The Doctor slapped a few more controls before berating her. He pointed his finger at her as he walked to the stairs.

"I'll have you know if someone has a bajillion Quatanorees on the planet Ooogleflap, they're considered a very wealthy person."

Martha stared at him as stood on the top step, returning her gaze.

"How absolutely clueless do you think I am?"

He giggled to himself. "Sorry, had to try. But Ooogleflap _is_ a real planet."

A sceptical eyebrow rose.

"Honestly! 'Armpit of the Universe', it's called." He thought for a moment. "In a good way, obviously."

"Oh, obviously."

"Aaanyway, time to look at some of the old faces, don't you think? Maybe there are some pictures in Sarah Jane's room…"

"Who?"

The Doctor froze. "Oh, um… nothing." He nodded happily down the stairs. "Let's go, let's go, come on."

She pointed a wary finger to the TARDIS 'engine', which was now wheezing and grinding away as usual. It was comforting, in its' own unhealthy sounding way. But still…

"Wait, what about that hole in the time vortex?"

"Oh, the TARDIS is taking care of that," he said, waving a dismissive hand. "And once that's done, we're off to Drentax Five!" He announced, pointing a finger up in the air. "Now come on, do you want to see these old faces or not?"

"All right, all right, coming…"

With a lingering look at the control panel, she followed him down the stairs.

"It's just, you know, the Anti-Doctor ignored the TARDIS too…"

"Oh, now you're just being nasty."

"But-"

"Martha! It's fine, leave it! Now come on!" He whirled on his heel and lightly ran down the stairs.

She put up her hands defensively. "Okay, okay…" She allowed one more glance at the central column. "Actually, could we go to Hawaii instead?"

The Doctor stopped so fast almost tumbled over and down the stairs. "Hawaii?! _Hawaii?!" _he shouted, looking insulted. "I offer you the most luxurious, beautiful beaches in the known universe _ever_," he ranted, throwing his arms around, "and you want to go to _Hawaii?!_" He paused. "All right, then."

She smiled. "Good."

He smiled and turned around, jumping over the last few steps and walking backwards down the corridor as she followed him.

"And by the way, don't be expecting too much down here. I don't really keep many photos and things like that."

"Okay."

His gaze travelled upwards as he thought for a moment. "I suppose I could just show you what I used to wear… nah, wouldn't want to give you an excuse to make fun of me, would I?"

He grinned, and it quickly spread to her. Suddenly he stopped at a random door Martha had never thought to enter. He wrapped his hand around the door handle, and waited until Martha was stood next to her.

"And just so you know," he said, looking over at her, "I meant it, what I said to the Anti-Doctor."

Her grin vanished as she realised. "Oh. Um… thank you."

A vague, kind smile was all she got by way of reply. "You ready?" he asked excitedly, as though they were about to step on a rollercoaster.

And seriously, what a thing to ask. Was she ready? She had _never _been ready for _anything_ the Doctor had shown her.

He pushed open the door, and he was off. The room was huge, like one of those warehouses of confiscated goods you saw in movies. Except, far, _far _less organised. For a start, the boxes weren't in rows. Or even on shelves. They were just everywhere.

The Doctor waded into it without fear, practically swimming through a library of boxes, books and random pieces of paper. Martha just watched as he scrambled around like a dog digging for a bone, clambering over boxes, inspecting random bits and pieces (sometimes even sniffing them) before tossing them over his shoulder.

But even though she was never ready, she always knew she would come out of these things alive.

He looked over to her. "Come on, then!" he yelled, summoning her over with an enthusiastic wave of his arm. With a grin she had no hope of stopping, Martha joined her Doctor in the search.

She would always be safe. Because she was with her Doctor.

Their search ended a few hours later, both of them sat next to opposite other, exhausted, laughing and tossing around a cricket ball the Doctor had found.

They didn't find any pictures in the end. The only things the Doctor thought important enough to pull out was the aforementioned cricket ball, a feather, and a piece of lint, the presence of which annoyed the Doctor to no end for weeks afterwards.

"I mean, how did the TARDIS pick up lint!?_ Lint!"_

Laughing, tired, and safe, life went on for Mr Smith and Ms Jones.

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(A/N: There's an epilogue to go, folks, so don't stop reading now!)


	11. Epilogue

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**The Other Doctor**_

_**Epilogue**_

It had been a long day. But it wasn't as if he had been rushed off his feet, oh no. In fact, PC Andy Davidson had spent most of his day discussing directions with a lady that was far too old to be wandering around the streets of Cardiff alone, during the day or at night.

And roughly five minutes ago he was approaching the end of said long day, and was looking forward to nothing more than meeting his latest romantic prospect, Helen, at the pub and having a nice quiet drink or two. Or three.

Now he wanted five drinks. And a cigarette, even though he didn't smoke. Because some drunken tosser just _had_ to show up in the middle of Cardiff wandering around naked except for the torn remains of a leather jacket.

And, of course, _he _had to be the one to spot the daft drunkard, pull up beside him and get out of his car to talk to him in the pouring rain.

Christ, police work was glamorous.

"Are you all right, sir?"

The man stopped and looked at him. "I… don't know."

English. Rather posh, too.

"Well, are you in pain?"

He had taken to looking around now, as though seeing everything for the first time. "No…"

Andy smiled. "Well, that's a start, isn't it?"

"I… suppose so, yes," he breathed, nodding vaguely.

Well, that wasn't strange at all. "So… what's your name?"

The man just stared at him.

"Sir? Your name?"

"Name?"

Good God, how drunk _was _he?

"Yes, your name."

"I… can't remember."

"Okay…" Andy said, slowly nodding. "Do you remember where you live?"

He seemed to give it some serious thought, but ended up just looking lost and frightened.

"No…"

He was starting to sound a little panicky now.

"So you don't remember _anything _about yourself?"

A shake of his head was the only response, his curly hair bouncing around as his head moved.

"All right," Andy said resignedly, putting an arm around him. "Let's get you in my car and I'll take you to the police station, all right?"

He seemed resistant at first, but then started nodding, as though the whole thing was his brainstorm to begin with. "I… yes, yes… that… that sounds like a good idea."

"What's the last thing you _do _remember?" he asked, guiding him to his parked car.

"I remember… waking up in a large, sort of… courtyard. There was a building in front of me with writing on it. Welsh, I think. And there was this… tower of water behind me. I was wearing this," he squeezed his jacket like a security blanket, "but…" he squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to remember. "…that's all." He looked to Andy and smiled apologetically. "Sorry."

Andy gave him a reassuring smile back as he opened the door for him. "Perfectly all right, sir. Sounds like you were in Roald Dahl Plass to me. Sound familiar to you?"

He mouthed the words as though they sounded familiar, but he ended up just shaking his head.

"Never mind. Let's just get you back to the station. Then you can see a doctor."

The man suddenly stood upright and grasped Andy's luminous coat by the lapels, startling him.

"What did you say?"

Unsure of what to expect, Andy reached a cautious hand around his back for his baton.

"I said I'll take you back to the station and you can see a doctor."

Something lit up behind his brown eyes. "Doctor…"

"Yes, a doctor. Now, let's get you inside."

He seemed ready to say something else, but then settled for nodding and slipping into the back seat.

Andy blinked and shook his head before rounding the car and getting in the drivers' seat. He radioed it in and headed off for the police station.

Andy looked in his central mirror to see his guest dropping off to sleep in the back. He hadn't been able to smell any alcohol on him. This was a first for him; an actual amnesiac. Poor sod.

"Doctor…" he said one more time, before his head lulled back and he dropped off into what looked like a very deep sleep.

Andy sighed. Still not worth drinks down the pub with Helen.

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The End.

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(A/N: And that's that, folks. I've enjoyed this little foray into the universe of _Doctor Who_, and your reviews and feedback have made it even more worthwhile. In fact, I liked the experience so much, this story will get a sort-of-sequel in the form of a _Torchwood_ story, 'Echoes'. So if you're a fan of that show, keep an eye out for that story in the coming weeks.

With that said, I'd just like to thank the following for taking the time to review. Anyone can read a story, but it takes a considerate soul to take a few minutes and actually comment. So anyway, thanks to the following:

thepennameboo  
TheWatcherand Reader  
hhgbh - an extra special thank you to this reader for the superb job of beta reading my stories before other readers clap eyes on them.  
bluedragon1836  
Shrink To Be  
wyldcat  
Turton Treasure  
Larson  
Syreene  
Gamine Madcap  
if i were real.  
TRACY  
celticfox  
elektralyte  
Aelita Madeline  
TAS14

So, with all those thanks given... don't forget to review this chapter too!

See you, folks. Hope to see you on my next foray into the wierd and wonderful Who'verse.)


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